Chosen One
by Sivad Ttarp
Summary: Book Three of The Force Games trilogy. Pursued by the Empire, Kara Evenstern has found refuge with the unlikeliest group imaginable: the resurrected Rebel Alliance movement. As she struggles to master her own mysterious powers, Kara must become the figurehead of a revolution, and whether they win or lose, the galaxy will never be the same.
1. Chapter 1

Chosen One

Book Three of The Force Games

By Sivad Ttarp

Part One:

The Ashes

Chapter one:

I see light.

My mouth tastes like bacta.

In time I can separate the lights from the white surface of the ceilings and the walls and the sheets. It probably only really took few moments. The mattress beneath me is soft but so thin I can still feel the bedframe underneath it. The covers are warm and come up just below my shoulders. I'm naked beneath them. No surprise there, I smell like was just pulled out of a bacta tank. I peek down, scan my arms and legs. All clean. No scars, let alone the cuts, scrapes and gashes a few days in the arena will give you.

"Hi there."

It wasn't that I hadn't noticed the man in the room, leaning against the wall. I just allowed him to make his own introduction. "Hello," I said, "Rebel Alliance."

That was the last thing he'd said to me, the last I'd remembered: he'd said 'Welcome to the Rebel Alliance'. Then somebody had pumped me full of sedative and I woke up here. So the Quarter Quell really had had a twist ending, at least for me. I figured the good people of the Empire hadn't seen a thing, not since our electronic pulse had knocked out all their cameras. Technical difficulties; I wish I could hear the holonet's excuses.

The man certainly fits the part of a naïve freedom fighter. Human, he's around thirty with brown hair, bright eyes, a cleft chin and skin that looks like it's been left out in the sun too long. He wears tall boots, dark trousers and a white shirt under a heavy dark blue jacket, vaguely militaristic in design. A thick blaster is holstered at his side, making it look like he was compensating for something. Probably compensating for being a member of the Rebel Alliance.

"Name's Doggs," he says, "Lyle Doggs."

"Kara," I say.

"Oh I know who you are, Miss Evenstern," he smiles. "Victor of the seventy-fourth Force Games."

"And the seventy-fifth," I say.

"Afraid we cut those a little short," he says.

"Sure," I say, "But I'm alive aren't I."

"Right on," says Doggs, still grinning. He's bemused by me, by meeting a celebrity. I can _feel _it. Maybe it's the force Vaynich talked about filling my blood with little sensory impulses or some shit. What I can't tell is if he's going to ask for my autograph or walk right up and punch me in the stomach.

"Here," he says, plunking a bundle of clothing on the end of my bed. "Get dressed, you've got an appointment. I can give you more of tour afterward; maybe gets you something to eat. You must be hungry."

I don't answer, so he turns his back to let me dress. I consider attacking. I could wrap all this fabric around his neck, suffocate him with the bra. But I don't. If they'd wanted to kill me they would have done so already. No, they want me for something. Knowing what it was would allow me to plan accordingly. So I dress calmly and slowly.

The pants and shirt resemble what Doggs is wearing. I can't tell with the undergarments, but he doesn't seem the bra and panties type. I pull on soft flat shoes, they don't come with socks. Everything is a size too big, other than the shoes which fit perfectly. You'd think they'd have done better with the sizes since they had me lying unconscious in a room to measure. Perhaps it was a statement sort of thing. The Rebels are showing me that I depend on them and they don't care to pamper me.

Doggs whisperers into his comlink, I have good ears. I hear him say "I'm bringing her up."

"Well, let's not keep them waiting," I say.

Doggs doesn't stop grinning as he leads me out of the room into a hallway that's just as white. It's deserted. We enter a lift at the end. I don't want to ask questions, don't want to sound any weaker, but I wouldn't mind some more answers…

"You were there," I say as we ascend, "At the space station arena, you rescued me."

"No thanks necessary," he says.

I wasn't about to thank, but I won't tell him that. "We're you just watching me?" I ask. "Watching me sleep."

"I'm supposed to watch over you," he says, "I was given very specific instructions."

"Like what?"

"Like not letting you talk to anyone."

"But I'm talking to you now?"

"I couldn't resist," he admits.

"Talking or watching? Run any searches?"

"No. Um, yeah. Well…" He trails off. "I had to check for…"

"No thanks necessary," I tell him as the door opens. There's a short hall before us, with only one door at the end.

"Right through there," Doggs says, "You can't miss it."

"I can't," I agree, stepping out into the corridor. "Who am I going to see?"

"The President," Doggs gives me a nod, and the lift door shuts.

I press the button on the lift door behind me, but it has no effect. Finally I resort to walking down the hall to the door Doggs had intended me to open. I don't knock or ring the door chime. It's unlocked, and slides open soundlessly.

"Do come in," says a sonorous female voice, and I enter. The room is brightly lit, and mostly white. A comfortable looking chair hangs from the ceiling behind a clear desk with a holo-projector and a computer terminal set into it. In front of the desk is a low couch. I sit here, and it's so close to the ground it makes me feel like I'm squatting. The room has no other decoration, save for its single occupant.

I've never met a Kaminoan before, but I'd seen pictures. They were taller in person. I'm not a short girl and she must tower over me by at least a foot and a half. Indicative of her species, she is very slim, long-necked, bald, nose-less and has three fingers one each blue-grey hand. She wears a white robe over tight dark gray clothing.

"I am Alla Coy, President of the Rebel Alliance," she says. "You may call me Madame President."

"This," I say, "Is the part where I introduce myself and you tell me that you already know who I am and am familiar with my…exploits, I guess you could call them."

"Correct," Coy seems amused. "In that case, let us skip ahead."

"I'd been taught the Rebel Alliance was destroyed," I say. "Exterminated."

"Do you believe everything you're taught."

"Of course not. There are obviously a few people who call themselves Rebels now, led by you I assume."

"Correct, but we are more than few," says Coy. "The Empire hunted us and thought us eradicated. It was all but true. But we have hidden in the shadows and bided our time. We've grown in strength and numbers, especially in recent years."

"Powerful enough to attack the arena while the Quarter Quell was taking place?"

"Obviously," Coy states.

"But weak enough to choose to wait until the pulse device hidden in my pendant disabled the shields and defenses."

"Well, prudent enough."

"Where am I?" I ask after a moment's pause.

"You're aboard the _Krayt_, our flagship, in the midst of our fleet."

"How big of a fleet?"

"Bigger than ever before," says Coy.

"You're not going to give me much information are you?"

"Not yet," says Coy.

"So what are you going to tell me?" I feel an instinctual urge to go back to bed and leave her nondisclosure alone.

"The Nautolan tribute has made a full recovery, not unlike you."

I remembered them stunning Fenric, and dragging him along with me aboard the Rebel ship. He'd been trying to kill me before that. Knowing of his survival brought me no joy. But it did bring me more knowledge, so that was welcome. "How about Zanna and Vaynich?" I ask.

"Zanna is with us," says the President. "She is well."

"She was rescued too?"

"Not exactly.

"And Vaynich?"

"We did not recover the other Tatooine tribute."

"He'll be all broken up about that," I muse. "He was the one who was excited about his mysterious friends, about tearing down the empire." Me, I'd just killed the right boy at the right time in front of the right camera. Happenstance really.

"We had different priorities." President Coy intones.

"Good job," I say, "Interrupting the Games might not have hurt the Imperial war machine much, but it certainly would have given a very symbolic message. Gotten your sympathizers all choked up."

"Oh it has," says Coy, "It's a joy to look over the holos these last few days. Hysteria abounds. The Empire is making excuses and accusations left and right, executing and bumping off a slew of politicians and Games runners, like the man who gave you that pulse pendent. They're playing big, acting hard, and it's because they're scared. The Emperor knows the Rebellion is back."

"Mission accomplished."

"Just the one," says Coy. "You're next."

"Excuse me."

"Retrieving you was our priority all along," President Coy says.

"What?"

Coy raises a hand before I can continue. "This is the part where you say you aren't a special revolutionary, and have simply been swept up in events that are beyond your control."

I shrug, "Well, yeah."

"I know this too," says Coy, "But it is now something that will be kept between us only."

"Why?" I ask.

"I have an army," says President Coy. "I have ships, I have weapons, and I have soldiers to fire them. I know how to use this to the advantage of my cause. But my revolution is missing one thing. A hero."

"And I'm a hero?" I smile at this. Maybe I shouldn't. If a hero is one who fights to survive against terrific odds than a hero am I.

"You have carved your own unique niche in popular culture," says President Coy. "You have come to represent the ideals and goals I want people to latch on to."

"I'm your new hope?"

"Hope is easy," Coy sniffs. "You got people angry."

"And you want me to do that on command?" I ask.

"I want you to be my symbol, my figurehead, my warrior princess," says Coy. "The golden age of the Rebellion had its heroes to inspire it. Luke Skywalker was a leader, a soldier and eventually a martyr. I intend to make you none out of three, but you will fulfill the same role."

Roles again, Vaynich would have been glad to hear her classify that way.

"Skywalker was the last of a grand tradition," says President Coy. "Peasants have always looked up to knights, the Jedi cultists above all. Their kind may have been purged, but Skywalker was the last to attempt to walk their path. There is nothing more inspiring to a rebellion than a friend powerful enough crush somebody's throat from fifty paces with only their mind. I will make a Jedi of you."

I open my mouth, my head filled with what Vaynich and Preteet told me about their Force Games, how they were designed to weed-out and liquidate or control force-sensitives, but I hesitate.

"Yes, I am aware of your talents," she anticipates my thoughts.

I keep her in suspense for a moment before I speak. "What's in it for me?"

"We're not trying to kill you," President Coy says.

"That's been enough for so long, I think it's time I start asking for more," I say.

"I said I'd make a Jedi of you, and that's what I will do," says President Coy. She reaches beneath her desk and produces a gray metal cube, traced with intricate decoration. "You are already going to be the most powerful person in the room. Imagine if you could control it. Incredible power, the force of ages, awaits you. This is a Jedi holocron, an ancient relic, and it will teach you all it knows."

My hand stretches for the cube, but Coy holds it out of reach. "Ah, ah, what do we say?"

"I say…when can we start?" I twist my face into a grin, show her my teeth.

"Good," she drops the cube into my palms. "You may leave. Doggs will show you everything you need. I have a Rebellion to run." She sits behind the desk.  
I hold my ground. "So when do I start being a symbol? How does this work?"

"There's a legend I'm going to use," says President Coy. "A Jedi prophecy from long ago. They foretell a Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force. Some believed Anakin Skywalker, more commonly known as Darth Vader, to be that man."

"Was he?"

"That's a matter for academics and philosophers," said President Coy. "I know that from now on, according to our official propaganda, you are the Chosen One. If you want to satisfy me you must embrace the role of savior, become it, live it, make them believe. Can you handle that?"

"Lady," I say, "You'll believe it yourself."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

The lift takes me down to the level below, which I suspect to be the _Kryat's _residential area. There's no one around, so I pick a corridor and began to walk. After a moment Doggs catches up to me, sprinting up from behind. He's the first person I've seen since Coy.

"How'd it go?" He asked. "She's intimidating, right?"

"Just a bit," I said. Actually, I thought she'd been a breath of fresh air. I'd spent a lot of time with authority figures over the past month. They either wanted to be my enemy, like Osca's aunt Grand Moff Trentiss, or they acted like my new best friend, like Chrona, the late designer of my dresses. Coy did neither, she seemed to view me objectively in terms of what I could or could not accomplish for her. She was just being logical, and I'd do the same in her place.

"Anyways," said Doggs, "I've got a class of new recruits to teach in a few minutes, so I'll have to let you fend for yourself." He hands me a datapad. "The layout and everything is on here. Your clearance levels have been set into the system already, you'll be able to get into every area Coy wants you to be able to at the moment. You've got a different room than the one you woke up in, but this should show you the way to your quarters."

"Okay," I say.

"See you," Doggs says warmly, and heads away at a brisk pace.

Scanning the _Kryat_'s floor plan on the datapad, I locate my quarters on the deck below and set off toward them at a brisk pace. I pass multiple Rebels, mostly soldiers and crew members, but even a few women with children. I speak to no one, and don't pause for a second glance at any portal or computer terminal. The holocron is burning a hole in my pocket, metaphorically speaking. If I really try, I can remember the Force, the telekinetic energy roiling off me like some instinctual response to danger. I'd blasted a wooden pendant out of my palm and right through a boy's chest. It tore a hole like a bullet, and if I focused I could still recall the smell of Fen's zabrak blood dripping away. Now that was power I wanted again. Power I wanted now. If I could control that kind of power I wouldn't have to bend to the will of Coy or Trentiss or anyone like them again. Well, probably.

I take a lift down one level, take two lefts and then a right, and pause at the room labeled 311 on the door panel. The door slides open when I press my thumb to the keypad. I enter my new room. It's very small and plain compared to my apartment on Coruscant, let alone my suite in the Tribute Academy. I find it refreshing.

The walls, floor and ceiling are white. There is a single bed, more of a cot really, that takes up about half of the room. Sheets, blanket, pillow; all white. The only decoration is a square of reflective surface on one of the walls; I look into it in intently. Functional as well as aesthetically pleasing (bacta brought out the best in my features, not they weren't just as objectively good as ever). There is a small closet with hangers, but empty of any clothing or other items. There's also a door leading into a closet-like refresher unit. My datapad tells me showers are located in a room down the hall, to be shared by everyone in this hallway and the next.

I put my data pad on the shelf in my closet, and flop down on the bed, holding my holocron in both hands. I realize I have idea how to activate it. I run my hands over it, feeling all its nooks and crannies, searching for hidden buttons or hatches. After several moments, I give up on this branch of effort, and toss it into the air to myself over and over again. Unsurprisingly, that gleans no results.

I cross my legs under me on the bedspread, after kicking off my shoes, and glare at the holocron once again. This doesn't help either.

I focus my breathing. In and out, in and out. I think back to the times I've used the force before, not just telekinesis, but the processes I did not even recognize as abnormal, the way I could read people, sense their emotions, even influence their feelings if I really, really focused. I try to read the cube the same way, focus on it, sense it. In and out. I flex and relax my muscles, first my toes all the way up to my face and back again. In and out. I still push and prod the cube, but only in my mind. I am so intent that there's a hardly a difference between what I see and the vision in my mind when I close my eyes. In the latter I imagine some change. I'm not sure what, but something clicks. The holocron begins to glow from deep within. I can't tell when the change occurs, not specifically, but when I open my eyes I realize the same thing is taking place in reality.

The glow starts subtle, and rapidly intensifies, until there is as much light coming from the holocron as from the rest of the lighting in my room put together. This light focuses, till an alien stands in the air before me.

It is similar to a hologram, but different. Holograms make sense. You can see where they come from, and the images are obviously digital. This figure is different, the light seems more solid, more detailed, more…real, I guess. Still, when I whip my hand through the being of light I feel nothing, just like a hologram.

The woman before me says nothing, but she seems to glare, so I can't tell whether she recognizes my presence or not. She's a Togruta, and I immediately think of Sharon: specifically the sound of Zanna's axe splitting Sharon's skull. But this woman is not Sharon. She's at least twenty years older, forty-pounds pudgier and shorter to boot (not just because the holocron image is only about two feet tall). She has a round face, a small nose, and is dressed in plain light-colored clothing (tinted-green, but I think that's just the nature of the holocron recording) under a long -cloak tied across her breastbone. A hood hangs down at the back of her neck. I move to look at her back, intent to examine from every angle, and her eyes follow me. "Do you want something?" asks the Togruta

"Oh good, it seems I've activated the holocron correctly," I say.

"If that's all you were looking for, you might as well switch me off," she says. It wouldn't call it scorn, what I hear in her voice, but it's something along those lines. Emotions are tricky for me to classify, although that's about the only way I can hope to make sense of them.

She's no hologram, there's no lag, no interference, and she is definitely here in this room. I can sense the energy coming off her. Not life force, not exactly, but intelligence. Data might be the word. The size difference between us makes this among the more unique conversations I've ever had. I sit on my hands and start with the basics. "Who are you?"

"I am the holocron representation of Jedi Master Thea Tem of the counc-"

"Thea, Jedi, got it," I said. "You may begin teaching me now."

Thea sighs dramatically, "And what should I call you, young lady."

"Ka- The Chosen One will suffice."

"Chosen one?" she raises an eyebrow. "Chosen for what."

"To bring balance to the force."

"Not likely."

"Haven't you heard the prophecy?"

"I read a lot of prophecies," Thea says.

"About the chosen one that will bring balance to the force…"

"What the hell kind of prophecy is that?" Thea shakes her head scornfully. "That's Bantha shit. We don't want balance. I want the light side to triumph over all! Then there will peace and safety and security for everyone."

"The details aren't important," I say. My first Jedi is a lot feistier than I expected, I wonder if they were all like this. "The prophecy was probably after your time. The important thing is you teaching me. Right now."

"After my time…" Thea muses, chewing on a thumbnail. "I suppose is has been a while. What year is this?"

"105 A.B.Y." I say.

"A.B.Y.?" Thea scoffs. "What the hell is an A.B.Y.?"

"Years after the Battle of Yavin," I say.

"That gas giant planet? Who the hell fought over that piece of-?"

"That's not important," A little tact can go a long way. So I decide to use only a little. "I really do need your help. I have power; I am sensitive to the force. But I don't know how to use it, I need your help. Please teach me."

"You're much too old to start," Thea says, though with less vehemently than before. "Jedi are selected at birth. You could never pass the trials without-"

"It doesn't work that way," I say, "Not anymore."

"By all means, go on," says Thea.

So I do. "About a hundred and twenty years ago, the Galactic Republic became the Galactic Empire, a fascist regime controlled by a single man named Palpatine. He branded the Jedi as traitors to the Republic and exterminated them, ruling the galaxy with an iron fist.

For once, Thea is speechless. I continue. "There have been resistance movements, people have fought against the Empire, but all have been defeated and destroyed. There are no Jedi, and the force is a thing of legend. People sensitive to it are still born, but all are either controlled by the Empire or murdered in its yearly gladiatorial contests.

"I am in a unique position. I've escaped the Empire's reach for the moment. Right now I'm on a ship, part of the Rebel Alliance fleet. They're going to fight the Empire, and they need my help. I've survived two of the Empire's killing games, and I've done so defying them. I've got a bit of a reputation as a source of hope, an underdog, a freedom-fighter. I can lead them, I can be a symbol. I'm going to inspire people, get them to fight back, so that we can topple this Empire and usher in a new age of peace, prosperity and freedom.

"That's why I want your help. I can't do it alone. I need to become more. I need to be a Jedi. Together, we can bring the order back."

"Are you really the chosen one?" Thea asks quietly.

"I don't know," I shake my head. "That's what their President says. I'm not sure I believe in prophecies. But that doesn't make it any less important to our success. Can you teach me?"

Thea pauses before answering. "I may not be myself, I may not even be here, not really," she says, "But I can still read people."

"Am I worthy?"

"Short answer: no," says Thea. "You just want the power."

"Well…" If she really can read people, I don't want to lie.

"But," says Thea, "That doesn't mean I won't do what I can. Your motives are selfish but your story rings true. If the Jedi are really gone this brings me great remorse. I kind of liked those guys. We had some good teachings. There hasn't been a time in Galactic History, the parts I've of heard at least, where the Galaxy couldn't use a little more serenity, some humility, and a bit of looking out for the other guy too. Now more than ever. If training you and helping your Rebellion win is the first step toward spreading the Jedi code around, I will do what I can."

"So you will train me?" My heart beats faster. It seems I've convinced her.

"I always liked a good challenge," Thea smiles.

"So…uh…let's start," I say.

"Alright," says Thea. "From now on I am your master and you my apprentice. You will do as I say and think what I wish you too. Through this I shall remake you as a Jedi."

"Yes, ma'am," I say. I only intend to follow her orders if it matches my best interests, but I hardly need to tell her that.

"Master will do fine," says Thea. "Let us begin with the most basic of meditations. Before you promote positivity, you must become it. Rewrite yourself in the image of the Jedi code."

"So I become a piece of paper?"  
"No," Thea says, and adds as an afterthought. "Shut up." She sits in the air.

I mimic her position. "No," she clarifies, "On the floor." I climb down and assume the position again. My legs crossed tightly beneath me, my back straight as a rod. I rest my palms on my knees and close my eyes.

"Calm your breathing," Thea instructs, "Focus it. In. Out. In. Out. Your heart should be steady, beat-beat, beat-beat. You could keep time with it, keep a rhythm. That's what you want. Now clear your head. Think of nothing but white light and blankness. You cannot fill a glass that is already full."

She falls silent, so I continue to sit a breath. Is this what they call meditation? Seems like a waste of time to me. I could be strategizing or working out. But I banish these thoughts. There is the blank. There is light. I breathe in. I breathe out. Beat-beat.

I do not know how long this goes on. Once I peek at Thea. She's sitting as I am, a look of rapture on her face. I must be doing it wrong. I close my eyes and get back to work. And it is work. After what feels like hours my back starts to protest. My nose itches I resist the urge to scratch, try to think it away…

My head hits the floor. "Up, chosen one," Thea demands. "Face me."

I look to her, rubbing my eyes. I'd fallen asleep. "How long was that?"

"Six hours, give or take," she says.

"That's lengthy."

"Not really," says Thea, "You'll be doing twice that soon."

"I'm sure," I say, "Could we work on levitating stuff now."

"Oh, no, first things first," says Thea. "You need to fix your messy head. That's why we usually start them young, it's easier and quicker. You have all kinds of ideas we need to swap out."

"How long will that take?"

"Maybe like a year? I've never trained someone your age before, so it could be longer."

"Couldn't we skip ahead?" I ask. "I need levitation powers for throwing people around and stuff."

"Seeking power for your own sake is the way of the Sith," says Thea. "What I'm teaching you now is all foundation, the meditation and the philosophy. With it you earn the right to power, and you learn not to abuse it or use it contrary to the force. I teach you all or nothing. Otherwise, I can't bear to think what I may be responsible for."

"Very well," I say, sitting on my bed. I pull on my shoes.

"Where are you going?" asks Thea, "We were off to such a mildly respectable start."

"If we're going to spend two hours doing nothing, I'm going to need something to eat," I tell her. "Is there a way to switch you off? To save the batteries or something?"

"No, holocrons don't have such limited power sources," Thea scoffs.

"Very well," I say, "I hope we can continue shortly." I walk through my door and don't look back.

It doesn't take me long to realize that I left my datapad with the floor plans of the ship back in my quarters. I don't feel like going back for it though, not with Thea around. No need to show her any sign of vulnerability, even a minor one.

I may have taken a few wrong turns, and run into some doors that my low security clearance turned into dead ends, but I still make the mess hall before long. One of them at least, I think the _Krayt_ has two or three. It's a big ship.

I get my meal from a boxy droid who bustles around behind a long counter. It spouts a short stream of beeps and whistles as it presses a tray filled with what was basically a warmed MRE into my hands. I don't speak droid.

The cafeteria is mostly empty, though a few groups of Rebel soldiers or engineers eat together along the long rectangular tables. I had been planning on taking my food back to my quarters till I saw her. I couldn't resist, coming across a woman I knew in this place had seemed highly unlikely.

I slid onto the bench across from her, plonking my tray down on the table. My eyes water as I experience the initial dose of Falleen pheromones.

"Oh, hello," Zanna greets me happily; "I see you're awake."

"Yes, it happened recently," I say. "How long have you been here?"

"About two days I think," Zanna replies, "The time has kind of blurred together."

"I heard you didn't get rescued," I indulge my curiosity, "Not exactly, at least. How'd that go?"

"Well, as you know, we got separated when the gravity in the Arena got all screwed up. It threw me into a couple walls, and when I woke up, I was floating around. Weightless, the gravity was completely gone. Drops of water and knives and dead tributes were all just floating around. So I went off looking for you people.

"I didn't find anyone for hours. And then I ran into an imperial salvage crew. Three human men trying to count the dead and sum up the damages, see how much of the Arena was worth trying to fix. I'm partial to human men, or at least they're partial to me. They told me all about the Rebel attack. Then I killed them all and stole their ship. Evading the star destroyer waiting outside took a bit of work, but I managed to avoid them by plunging into a nearby debris field. There I ran into a Rebel ship who'd been spying on the star destroyer. They recognized me and brought me back here."

"What'd the President want with you?" I ask.

"No idea," Zanna shrugs. "Haven't talked to her. They gave me some room and board. I told them a bit of my story and said I would gladly fight for the Rebellion. They said they would gladly let me know how I could help. That's been it. You?"

"Same deal," I lie, "The Rebel's rescued me from the arena during their attack, and I wound up here."

"Any word about Vaynich?"

I shake my head.

"Pity," Zanna says, "I'd like to see him again.

"Sure," I agree. Time to appraise Zanna's loyalty. "But in a pinch I'd settle for screwing the Empire over with these people."

"Granted," Zanna says. "These are interesting times we live in, Kara. Made all the more so since we are such interesting people."

We finish our meal in silence. It's very bland, but nutritionally sound. After all the Junk food of the Coruscant elite I find it a pleasant contrast. The nutritional value is all you need really. Food is fuel.

After I finish, we say our goodbyes, and Zanna points me in the right direction. The gym is empty. I spend about an hour working out: lifting weights and doing other strengthening exercises. I figure I'll need to be in good shape for what it to come. I work up a sweat; feel the strain of my muscles. I don't leave till a trio of Bothan soldiers enters. I slip away before they can ask me for my autograph.

The showers at the end of my hall are just as empty, consisting of a row of cubicles hidden behind curtains for some slight privacy. The water is supplemented with soaps and sonic technology, in order to get the job done faster and more efficiently. The towels are white and have a Rebel symbol stitched in blue at the corner. It's quirky enough that after I finish up I take three towels with me back to my room.

The holocron has shut off when I return; no sign of Master Thea. I place the Jedi data storage device in my closet getting ready for bed. It doesn't take me long to fall asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three:

My mouth is dry when I wake up. I lie curled on my side and look into the darkness till my eyes adjust. I wonder if they're watching me now. President Coy or someone else; does the Empire know where I am? Who I am now?

Chosen one. When do I need to start acting? As soon as I start moving. I've got a role to play.

A high-pitched chime rings in my ears. I realize it's the door. I spill out of the bed and call, "Just a moment." I shut the door to my closet, and stuff my new towels under the bed. Then I pull on my pants, and open the door.

"Who are you?" I say.

A thin human boy, a few years my elder, stands outside my door. He's very pale, with light brown hair falling over his large blue eyes. He wears a white collared shirt and black pants. "My name is Edwin Garth, and I'm here to bring you in."

"Bring me where?" I ask.

"They want to put you in some commercials," he says. "I don't know why, I'm just the messenger."

"Oh, okay," I say. "Lead the way." I suppose my work as Chosen One is about to begin.  
Edwin heads down the corridor, without even looking to see if I follow. I hurry after him. "So, commercials?" I asked

"Yes, for holoprogramming," he says. "Recruitment videos, political criticism, that kind of thing. The Rebellion has been doing it for years. Menissa says that the most important battles are won in people's minds, before they ever pick up a blaster."

"Menissa?" I ask.

"Only one of the coolest people ever," Edwin beams, "You've never heard of her?"

"I haven't been here long," I say.

"That's no excuse," says Edwin, "Menissa Tarya was a big holoprogramming director, writer, producer and actor, and then she defected to the Rebel Alliance. It was quite the scandal, the Empire covered up everything. She's heading up our advertising and graphic design division ever since. You'll love her."

"I'm sure I'll meet her," I say as we enter an elevator. "So are you like her gofer?"

Edwin looks affronted. "The word protégé is used much more often. She's going to teach me directing."

I figure he means directing the caff maker, but I decide not to piss him off just yet.

"Hello, by the way," Edwin takes my hand and shakes it, "What's your name?"

"Kara," I say. "Wait, you don't recognize me?"

"Should I?"

"The Force Games? I won in both of the last ones."

"I don't watch the Force Games," he says. The lift arrives, and we head down another corridor (wider than the last one).

"How…really?" I've never met anyone who said that before, "Isn't that like taboo?"

"Not if you were born in the Rebellion," he says, "I've lived my whole life here, with this cause. We don't like the Force Games much here. They're disgusting."

"Some of the dialogue is pretty laughable," I admit.

"I mostly just watch Menissa's old stuff," says Edwin, "As everyone should. Her dialogue is great, and all the character stuff is really good."

"I'll bet it is," I say.

"Well, we're here," Edwin stops at a large white door. The plague next to the door reads 'STUDIO #2.' "This is just part of our operation, we've actually got a huge range of broadcasting apparatus in here, and we can hack into all kinds of airwaves, crash the systems of whole star ships with raw data. Soon it's going to be data all about you."

"Oh, joy."

The door slides open with a hiss and I follow Edwin through into one of the most underwhelming settings I have ever anticipated.

I know this was the Rebellion, not the height of the Empire's entertainment industry, but I'd been expecting there to be some kind of set or backdrop. Maybe a water feature. Instead, all I see is a blank white room. Walls, ceiling, floor. The half of the room by door is populated by tables filled with machinery, harsh white lights, and a dozen men and women tending to both of them.

"Ah good, welcome Miss Evenstern," a human female approaches, addressing me cheerfully. "We're almost ready."

"Menissa, I presume." It's not a question. I can tell it's her; just by the way Edwin's eyes light up. I reach out my hand to shake. Instead she takes me by the shoulders, and kisses me lightly on both cheeks. I can see why Edwin likes her: her black leggings look like they've been sprayed on, and the neck of her teal top is cut in a V that almost stretches lower than her breasts. She wears it like a uniform, a professional. This is a woman who understands that men like to look as much as touch. I imagine she uses both motivators to her advantage.

Menissa is younger than I pictured, only a few years older than Edwin. She has big eyes, a button nose, and small lips. Her features look like they've been carved out of stone, or at least sculpted by a surgeon. Her red hair gleams with product, and her boots add several inches to her height. "I'm glad you could make it," she says. "You look almost as photogenic in person as you do in the Games."

"You too," I try to say something amiable. "You look photogenic…I mean."

"That's very gracious, but I haven't the face for it."

"I don't believe that," Edwin admits.

"Well, not till recently," Menissa raps him smartly on the arm. When they stand closely, I notice Edwin is just tall enough to look right down her front. He realizes it too.  
"I'm new at this," I tell Menissa, gesturing around, "But don't you want to put like a potted plant over there or something."

"Oh no," Menissa waves a hand dismissively, "We do all that digitally in post. You just need to stand there and look gorgeous."

"I'm not bad at the first," I admit.

"I'll bring the second," Menissa winks. She snaps her fingers, and a woman with a datapad appears out of nowhere to flank her. "Get her ready," Menissa orders her.

"I've got some specs to go over," Menissa tells me. "I'll be just over there if you need me. Edwin, you're with me."

I watch her chatting with Edwin, as Menissa's aide leads me to a corner of the room. It's been a while since I've met someone who plays people the way I do. I don't make grand plans like Coy or Palpatine; I just do the little things. I wonder if Menissa's little dance is as obvious to anyone other than me.

Before I volunteered for my first Force Games, I'd hardly ever worn makeup. It had never been a priority. I figured I could do everything makeup could with a wink, a roll of the shoulders, and some soothing emotional projection. So hadn't bothered. But when I was attending events as a victor, it was makeup all the time. Powder on my checks, sparkles around my eyes, and fake lashes I could practically use to pick things up. That was just my face. I was all too prepared to be stripped, waxed and oiled just like the old days. No such poor luck. I just get a bit on my face to make me look better under the lights, or so the woman jabbing her fingers at my eyes explained.

After that, I am given a costume. I change in a temporary booth that had been provided in the corner. I dress in rough tan trousers and a tunic with flowing sleeves in the same color over a white sleeveless top. There are brown boots and a wide brown belt. The tan clothes are scratchy against my skin, reminds me of the peasant stuff I used to wear back on Tatooine. I didn't miss it. Function is most important attribute of clothing, but discomfort can be distracting, and distraction decreases functionality.

I walk back over the Menissa, who is pacing in a circle, reading off a datapad. "They said I'm ready," I announced in her direction.

"That you are," she says appraisingly, looking me up and down. "That will do."

"Awesome," Edwin judges. He's sitting in a chair and has a glass of water in his hand. "You look like a Jedi."

"Oh, is this how they dress?" I ask. On second thought, I think I've seen some holos before. Just not many. My holocron Thea was a Jedi now that I thought of it. "No wonder they're so ill-tempered."

"Don't read a lot of history, huh?" Menissa looks at me oddly. "Peace, brotherly-love and all those teachings?"

"I've been a little busy," I admit.

"Well…go stand over there," Menissa points over to the white undecorated side of the room. I follow her instructions.

I follow in her instructions. I walk over and stand a few feet from the wall. I turn to face Menissa. The equipment around her begins to hum more intensely. "And…" she announces loudly, "action!"

There is only inaction. I stand and they stare. "What am I supposed to do?" I ask.

"Cut," Menissa sighs dramatically. "Okay," she calls to me, "Didn't you get briefed on what we were recording?"

"Not particularly," I say.

"Edwin," Menissa rolls her eyes dramatically.

"Sorry, other things came up," Edwin says sheepishly.

"Alright," Menissa walks over to me. "Were making some inspirational speeches. You're going to talk about your past, about the Empire, about the Rebellion, all that stuff. Nothing too long, all from the heart. Remember when you were on the Victory tour?"

"Yeah," I say, "Should I do a speech like that?"

"No way, too rehearsed. Yuck." She talks very fast, punctuated with vigorous hand motions. "Except for that one speech, the one at the Twi'lek place. That was sexy. Many feels."

"Do you have any kind of script?" I asked.

"No script, man," Menissa kicks at the ground, "From the heart. You have heart. Soul. Talent. Love. At least that's what they say in the tabloids. Be spontaneous. Be creative. Spread your little wings and fly!"

"Uh. Okay," I say.

"We ready?" Menissa asks. Her gaze goes right over my shoulder.

"I'm ready," I nod. "Just one more question?"

"Shoot."

"Are you absolutely sure we don't we need some kind of scenery?" I point at the white wall behind me.

"No, no, don't worry about that," Menissa heads back to her chair. "Now. Let's do this. Talk to the audience, love your audience. Be spontaneous." She sits, clears her throat, "And…action!"

It still takes me a moment to begin speaking. "Hello. My name is Kara Evenstern."

"Cut!" Menissa yells. "That's beautiful! I'll take it!"

"But I haven't really done anything yet," I point out.

"It's good," says Menissa. "We can use that part, even if the rest is crap. We'll edit it together in-"

"Post-production," I finish for her. "M'kay. I said my name. What do you want me to say next?"

Menissa shrugs, "What's the next most important thing?"

I take my position again, and she calls for action. I look right into the holorecorder. "I am the Chosen One." There is a dramatic pause.

"That was lovely," Menissa says. "I got chills all over. But I'm starting to think that a little more makeup around the eyes wouldn't go amiss…"

…

It goes on. Action. Talk. Cut. Repeat. I don't even really know what I'm saying after a while.

"That's why I hate the Empire." Cut

Action. "I will find a way to tear them down so that I can…save people. Yeah, that's it." Cut.

Action. "I will bring balance to the force. I'm learning how. I need your help. Not to help me learn, that is, I'm good there. I mean to fight the Empire." Cut.

Action. "Fight the Empire! Fight for your families! Fight for your future!" Cut.

Action. "Freedom!" Cut.

Action. "Enlist in the Rebel Alliance today." Cut and that's a keeper. That's what Menissa says at least.

We break to drink caff. The crew eats MREs shaped like pastries. I stand in the corner and watch them socialize. I say nothing; none of them talk to me. Until Menissa walks up, "I think we've gathered enough sound bites for our ads for the moment," she says. "When we get back we're going to try something different."

"Just tell me what you'd like," I say.

"Good. Good girl," says Menissa happily. "I'd like you to tell the audience your story. Just start at the beginning and lay it out until you got here. Don't hold anything back, just talk it out. We'll see what we want to use in post."

"Okay…" I say, but she's already across the room, showing Edwin a panel on a big cylindrical machine. I finish my caff in one swig. It burns the back of my throat raw.

I get a chair this time, a hard plain one. I cross my legs at the knee. "Action!" Menissa calls.

I take a deep breath and start lying. "Volunteering for the Force Games was the hardest decision I've ever had to make."

This is not the truth. I tell what happened, but only a reflection of it. Not what I'd see a mirror, but what someone might see if they saw me look in a mirror. I do what Coy would want. I make myself sound good and the Empire sound bad. I tell them about Perrin but not how I alone am responsible for his death. I give the details on how the Empire threatened me and hunted me down in the desert, but not the details on how they provided for my family and sent me to college. I tell about Osca, but not the Osca I think of as my friend. She worked for the Empire, so that made her one of _them_.

"As the arena fell away behind us, the man looked at me and said 'Welcome to the Rebel Alliance'," I say. "And I knew I was home."

"Great stuff," Menissa calls out. "Now how long have you known you were the Chosen One?"

"Vaynich told me more about the Jedi," I say, "The Empire sometimes likes to sweep their good qualities under the rug. But in a way, I think I've always known that I could accomplish great things."

"Yes!" Menissa jumps to her feet. "That was it, right there. We got it."

"What's it?" Edwin asks her.

"Don't interrupt me," Menissa chides. "In any case. We're done for today. We'll do more later. It's been fun."

"So I'm free to go?" I get up from my chair.

"Sure," says Menissa. "We'll ring you up when we want to shoot more stuff."

"Alright," I say, and leave the room. I yawn several times before I reach my quarters. However, once I'm back I power up my holocron first of all.

Thea flickers into existence just above the box. "Hello, apprentice," she says graciously. "Shall we continue our training?"

"It's your training too?"

"I learn a lot from my students," Thea shrugs.

"What kind of things?" I wonder aloud.

"Mostly patience," Thea admits.

"Can you teach me how to move things with my mind now?" I ask.

"No," says Thea, "Patience is the thing. Meditation first."

"First, as in during this lesson, or as in: maybe levitation in a year?"

"If you were patient enough to be a Jedi it wouldn't matter to you."

I'm not sure I believe her, but I sit and cross my legs nonetheless. I don't need Thea to tell me how to manage my breathing. I've done this before. I guess I'm doing it correctly, because she doesn't stop me.

The silent inaction and the darkness behind my eyelids is a nice contrast to my holo-recording experience earlier that day. I try to clear my mind, think of nothing. But I'm not sure what that means, so I think of blackness.

It feels as though I've only been meditating a few moments when the door chimes.

I rouse myself from my meditation and get to my feet. I look for Thea, but the projection of the Jedi is nowhere to be seen. I stash the Holocron beneath my bed and open the door.

I stand there a moment, my mouth slightly open. The last time I'd seen him he'd been trying to kill me while the arena had been falling to pieces around us. "May I come in?" He asks.

"Sure."

Fenric looks around my room curiously, and sits down on my bed. He slides the backpack from his shoulders. The green-skinned Nautolan is just as well built as I remember. His t-shirt has the Rebel symbol emblazoned over his left pectoral. I still think of my pendent when I see it; the one Galen gave me a life and a half ago. Or was it a year. Something likes that.

"So you've enlisted?" I point at his chest.

"Been drafted more like," Fenric admits, "But I'm good with it. I'm like a blaster. I do what I do; I just need to be pointed in the right direction."

"So…" I sit on the floor across from him, "Why the hell did you come here."

"I want to apologize," Fenric says, "For almost killing you and…yeah that's about it. I really do regret it."

"It was the Games," I wave a hand. "It's past." I still promise myself I'll never turn my back on him.

"Nevertheless," Fenric opens his backpack. "I figured I'd like to make it up to you. Not that I can, but this'd still be nice." He pulls a narrow bottle of amber liquid from the pack, along with two small glasses.

"Looks nice to me," I sniff. "I haven't had any alcohol since Coruscant…"

"Me neither," Fenric says. "Someone gave me this though, found it beside my bacta tank. Even in the Rebellion I have fans."

"Don't take it personally," I say, "You're not the only one."

"So I've heard," he wrests the cap from the bottle with a hiss. "The chosen one, huh?"

"Yeah," I say. "I am."

"Who'd have thought," Fenric pours a pair of glasses. "You seemed a normal enough girl to me. A little psychopathic sure, but that's just cause we're tributes."

"That was your mistake," I reach out to take a glass. "I'm very psychopathic." I take a sip, and nearly choke as the alcohol catches in my throat. "Oh, that's good."

"Did you know that the Rebels were going to attack?" Fenric asks, "That they were going to save us?"

"I had no idea," I say.

Fenric seems pleased with this. He takes a sip. He looks as though he's going to say something, but then he takes another drink instead. I follow his example. Before long I have an empty glass. I hold it out, and Fenric refills it without saying a word.

We make it through the rest of the bottle. It feels like only minutes Fenric take my glass and packs up everything he brought. "Thanks," he says. "Of everyone here you were my first choice to share a quiet drink with."

"Of all the people who offered me a drink, you were the only one I took up on," I say.

"I was the only who offered too?"

"Yeah."

"So this girl," Fenric says, leaning back on my bed. "The one you told me about in the arena. We're you two…are you serious?"

"We're consummated, if that's what you mean."

"'Kay," says Fenric. "Just wondering."

"You were wondering if you were going to ask me to dinner." I read him.

"We'll never know, will we?" says Fenric.

"You will, because you would've been wondering it," I point out.

"Have a good night Kara," Fenric stands. "And may the odds be ever in your favor."

"May the force be ever in yours," I say as he leaves.

"That's a relief," Thea appears, floating above my bed, directly over where I'd placed the holocron beneath it. "I thought he'd never go."

"Were you listening the whole time?" I ask.

"I'm always listening," Thea says. "Want to know how many times you swallowed?"

"I'd rather leave that to my own imagination," I say.

"Good job, by the way, sending him off," says Thea. "You're a Jedi now, and Jedi keep it in their pants."

"So I _am _a Jedi."

"An apprentice one, yes," says Thea. "Now, let's get meditating! I'd like you to try one standing on your head."

"How about lying on my bed?"

"I guess that could do for now."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four:

I do the whole thing over again.

It's not exactly the same of course, but the next day is very similar. Just less distinctive. I get up, check the messages on my pad, and head to Studio 2. I say some more bold statements, and pose dramatically in front of the wall. Their machinery whirs and Menissa tells me which direction to swing my hips in.

After we finish for the day, I eat rations in the mess hall, while Edwin stares at me from across the room. I count how many fingernails he chews off so that I can tell him tomorrow.

I go back to my room and power up my Jedi master. "I let you off easy last night," Thea tells me, "I was feeling pleasant because of your whole chastity experience. Now, I really think we should try the meditation on your head thing."

I think it takes a few days for my ears to stop pounding.

It doesn't take long for my new job to become routine. Menissa does try shake things up with the recording process, though mostly just with my wardrobe. Along with reading and improvising different anti-Empire messages and anecdotes, I wear all kinds of outfits, from rough homespun tunics to opulent colorful gowns, once a mini-skirt and sports bra combination. ("This one's for the troops," Menissa says. Edwin chews his thumbnail till it bleeds.)

Outside of work, I spend my time by myself. I take to bringing my food to my room just so I can avoid the dull roar of conversation of the mess hall, not to mention the approach of any young soldier eager to shake hands with the Chosen One. In a way it reminds me of my time in college on Coruscant, only there I was expanding my knowledge rather than simply regurgitating it. School was interrupted by Osca's war against my unsocial lifestyle, along with a string of seductions of boys who looked like Perrin. Since I'd gotten here I'd hardly thought of Perrin, and Osca was far away. I've kept my eyes peeled for any Rebel Alliance girls who looked like her, but none have met my standards.

Every night I meditate myself to sleep under Thea's direction. I've gotten much better at sitting still, but I gradually start spending more and more time in the gym so that I can shorten our breathing sessions. Working out seems much more useful than meditation. I've always been in pretty good shape; beating up gang members and tributes is good exercise. Even when I was a student on Coruscant, I made sure to go running and eat well (which is good because I drank _a lot_). Still, I think I'm getting into better shape now than I have ever been in my life. It befits the Chosen One, I expect.

Even as I slip into routine, I recognize and condemn it. Routines make you comfortable, and that can cost you your life. It's almost a relief when I walk in to studio #2 to find Fenric already up in front of the wall, flexing his biceps for the recording device.

"Let's get some more oil on those," Menissa calls to a makeup artist.

"What?" I ask Edwin.

"Oh, hello," he says, "Didn't you get the memo?"

"What memo?"

"Sent you a datapad message a minute ago," he says. "We don't need you today. We're shooting some stuff with Fenric."

"But I'm the Chosen One…"

"Of course you are, but you're not the only tribute. Menissa wants to get even more details to the story. That's just the way she rolls. The story is the most important."

"And I thought these were supposed to be informational."

"History is only storytelling too," says Edwin.

"Did Menissa tell you that?" I ask.

"I rephrased it," he said defensively. "Anyway, we don't need you today. But…"

"But?"

"But today is a very special day."

"Many happy returns."

"Oh, it's not in my honor-"

"Wish them to Menissa then."

"All of us deserve them," says Edwin, "Today they're showing the first commercial. They're going to hack into the Imperial airwaves and show it across the Empire. I helped complete the editing myself. It'll be spectacular."

"When?" I ask. He seems disappointed I don't have further commentary.

"Dunno," he shrugs. "Our technicians are working on the Imperial holonet as we speak. I'll give you a heads up though. They're going to be showing it all across the _Krayt,_ but I'll probably be in the mess hall near your quarters."

"Kay," I say, "See you."

As I leave the studio behind, I realize that my day has just opened up in a big way. I don't have much of anything to fill it with. So I jog to the gym and do a few sets, before taking a shower at least three times as long as regulation suggests. I figure now that I'm feeling nice and loose it's time for some more sitting around in my quarters.

"Where would you like me to kneel this time?" I ask Thea, as soon as she flickers into existence. I lie on my stomach on my bed beside the holocron.

"As a matter of fact, I think we may have moved beyond that," said Thea.

"Did I graduate?" I ask quickly. "Have I found my inner peace and calm?"

"Nope," says Thea. "You haven't found anything. I just don't think this meditation thing is working for you. Under other circumstances I'd keep forcing it, but if what you tell me about your Jedi-less situation is well and true, you don't have all the time in the world. If I do what I can here, I can pass on the finer points of meditation to another learner in time."

"I'm glad to hear it," I say. "Um, master. So…what next? Something useful? Do I get to levitate things?"

"No," says Thea.

"Oh."

"We're going to develop you telepathically first. A good Jedi can feel the emotions of those surrounding them, sense their feelings and intents. Pretty cool, no?"

"Actually," I say, "I already do that."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, um, master," I reply. "It's their feelings waft of them like a scent. It can't always be identified or understood, and sometimes it's stronger than others. Still, I can tell it's there when other people seem so oblivious to how each other are feeling. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes," Thea seems a little deflated. "You must be very sensitive to the force to have that advantage despite being so untrained and generally unfocused in mental discipline."

"So what next?" I ask.

"Well…" Thea's acting the wise accomplished guru once again, her armor back up. "You can act as well as react. You can twist and shape the emotions of those around you, play around in their heads. Imagine giving somebody's brain a little push in whatever direction you want them to go? Kids on the street call it the Jedi Mind Trick."

"Is that what it's called?" I ask. "I already do that too."

"Then why am I even here?" Thea groans.

"No, no, but I can't do it, like, well," I add quickly, "A lot. I can just ease people a little, that's all. I barely realize I'm doing it, barely understand that it's even, like, a thing. I'm sure there's more that I'm missing."

"Yeah," Thea says, "I'm sure there is. But it seems like you've felt the connection already. All things are united in the force, it connects us together: all life, all substance. Practice with that."

"Being united in the force?"

"Well yes, that's what the meditation was all about. I meant the mind tricking thing though."

"Will do," I say. The power she described sounded like it had great potential. I could exploit the hell out of something like that.

"I'll give you a few pointers," Thea promises, "But they don't compare to real trial and error. Every Jedi is a little bit different, no matter what they may claim. Practice makes perfect. Just be careful. The weak mind is more easily tricked, the weaker the better. Some races are more naturally resistant than others. It you try messing in enough people's heads enough times somebody someday _will _be able to tell what you're doing. Odds are it's really going to piss them off."

At this point, my datapad interrupts us with a little chirp. "Speaking of weak minds…" I reach over to pick it up.

"That kind of condescension isn't becoming a peacekeeper of the Republic," Thea frowns.

"You were totally thinking it though."

"I will not lie," Thea replies.

I scan my new message. "Could we hold that lesson-"

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Master," I say, "May I please be excused."

"For what purpose."

"My commercial's about to air," I say. "The holo crew is all meeting in the mess hall."

"You may go, on one condition," Thea sound so much like my mother, "Which is that you put that pad down right here on the bed and link the channel so I can watch that shit too."

"You got it," I set it up, and place the pad on the bed in front of Thea. It usually wouldn't be able to link to Empire holo-channels, but today's broadcast was a special exception. Menissa had promised Coy and the entire Rebel army that it would be an inciting incident in the oncoming war. "How'd you even know I could do that?"

"You already do mind tricks in your head, I figured you wouldn't let me down," Thea says, and if my force-senses are tingling correctly I detect endearment in her tone.

I get out of there fast.

…

"Now we see the Reek at ease, meandering through the native forests of its home world. Deforestation and poaching endanger this noble beast, and we must each do our part to keep its habitat alive and thriving."

The stuffy narration emits from the speakers on the holoprojectors decorating the mess hall. The nature documentary is just one of many programs about to be rudely interrupted. I wonder how many people across the Imperial capital, across galaxy, are watching this program; beings entirely separate and different yet brought together in purpose and thought by the same images and information. That was power. No wonder the Force Games had sounded like a good idea to the Emperor. Punishing and torturing people, making examples of them, it's one thing. Put it on the holonet and almost everyone across your domain will have the chance to see it. Make it entertainment: and suddenly they'll actually watch it.

"Congratulations," Menissa says to me. She's wearing a shimmering gown with a fitted bodice and flowing sleeves. The glass of wine she holds appeals to me.

"It's your party," I say, "I just stand there and look rebellious."

"I know," she says, "This is for the people."

"I wasn't informed about the dress code," I say, trying to sound apologetic. They holo crew is wearing their best dress uniforms and formal wear. For most of them, this isn't saying much, just a few extra buttons and shinier cuffs. The Rebellion prized function over formality. Nevertheless, my workout clothes set me apart. Not the best way to keep up my appearance as the Chosen One. I should have considered that before leaving. Now all I could smell was my own sweat.

"You look perfect," Edwin joins us, peering over Menissa's shoulder.

"Oh?"

"Just like you're supposed to," he says. "Simple, laid back, definitely the Chosen One."

"I, uh, I'll be over there," I say, and head to the other side of the room.

"Hello, little girl," Zanna hisses pleasantly as I join her. Her clothes are very black and very tight. She takes a second bite out of a protein bar.

"How are those?" I ask.

"Tastes like rebellion," Zanna says.

"And how does that taste."

"Like sawdust, apparently."

"So…" I see Menissa is now chatting up Fenric. Edwin has lost interest and wandered over to look at the wall. "Fenric's been doing some spots with Menissa."

"Ooh..." Zanna whispers in my ear melodramatically, "Spots."

"Ads, like I've been filming," I say. "Have they asked you to do any?"

"Nope," Zanna bites her lip. "I'm not sure if I should feel left out or grateful."

"Neither, they'd both be wastes of your emotional energy."

"Wise," Zanna nods, "You're so chosen."

"Oh, shut up," bump her genially.

"Thank you all for coming," Menissa climbs onto a chair. "I'd like to thank everyone for-"

"No time, it's starting," Edwin calls out. Everyone focus on the holo, as the nature program disappears in a burst of simulated flames. We pan out from the flames to find ourselves looking at a gigantic sun, as the sun goes dark the view speeds in hard toward the surface of a green little planetoid. The acceleration is disorienting, as we watch the trees rush up and finally face a single humanoid, lying dead and gutted on the forest floor. A female Twi'lek teenager. As soon as I recognize her I realize Menissa's done her job well. It's Rayne. The people will eat this up.

I see myself, a hologram of myself, come into view, standing over Rayne's corpse, dressed in the same outfit I wore during the seventy-fourth Force Games. "The Galactic Empire calls itself benevolent," my doppelganger says calmly. "Would a virtuous government exterminate forty-nine of your children every year and call it sport? The Force Games are not a memorial, it is terrorism. The Emperor is not your leader, he is your murderer. Every day he lives the very stars are darkened; his evil stifles, ensnares and enslaves our very souls.

I watch myself look straight into my eyes. "I've played the Empire's games, but the time to play has past. My name is Kara Evenstern, and I am a Rebel. Enlist today." I am replaced by a burning Rebel Alliance symbol.

This in turn fades to an Imperial holonet error symbol.

"Wow," Zanna whistles. "You are one cheery little girl."

"What about the Jedi stuff?" I ask bluntly.

"Oh, it's coming," Menissa joins me, pumping my hand up and down. "It is _so_ coming. We're working into it. We want to make sure people know who you are before they realize what you've become and what you always truly have been."

"I thought this was supposed to be the thing that changed everybody's minds?"

"It's the first word of a manifesto," Menissa says. "We've made so many of these miniature messages. We'll be flooding the holonet. This is just the first drop."

"You're the director," I shrug.

"Indeed," says Menissa. "That was rather good."

"I thought so," Zanna admits.

"'Manifesto'…" Menissa muses to herself "I must get Edwin to write that down before I forget."

I flinch as the holo suddenly glimmers back to life. The image of a woman stands among us. She wears an Imperial uniform. I swallow dryly. I'd hoped never to see her again.

"I am Grand Moff Trentiss," she introduces herself calmly. "The Empire does not tolerate dissension. The Empire will not allow anyone to threaten our peace and stability. The Rebel Alliance is a lie, a refuge for the vicious and the deviant. Kara Evenstern, you are not a hero. You are a coward, and we are going to allow you to prove it. You and your followers will now surrender unconditionally to us. We will be merciful. If you do not comply, your people will suffer. Six hundred citizens of Tatooine will die every hour until you obey. Once a day has elapsed, we will raze the planet. Goodbye, Kara. May the odds be ever in your favor."

She disappeared. In her stead the Imperial seal floats in midair. The sound of the Imperial anthem fills the room. It is joined by a single pair of hands clapping rapidly.

"Our commercial was good," Menissa gushes, "But theirs was spectacular."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

"I don't see why this is so difficult," I say. "We just do nothing. Simple as that."

"Not that simple, no," President Coy sighs. "We're the good guys, don't you remember?"

"Right," I say, "I'm new at that."

I was summoned to President Coy's office just after Trentiss's Imperial PSA aired. I don't think she's looked at me once. Her fingers fly across a datapad.

"They aren't serious though, are they?" I ask. "I mean, they wouldn't just pointlessly waste a bunch of taxpayers or potential laborers. It's got to be a bluff."

"Watch this," Coy activates a holo-pad on her desk top. A shimmering, blue tinted image of a city square in the desert appears. It certainly looks like Tatooine. "This is a live feed." On the holo a dozen captives kneel, blindfolded, with stormtroopers behind them pointing rifles at their heads. An Imperial officer drops his hand and barks an order (I would assume, the feed is silent). Each prisoner falls to the dirt. Sandtroopers (basically stormtroopers with larger canteens and orange highlights on their armor) escort another group of civilians forward to take their place, as the bodies are dragged aside and tossed on a pile. It's already a pretty big pile.

"If it's a fake it's a good one," I admit. "They must be more annoyed than I thought."

"We cannot and will not let this stand," Coy says.

"Are you going to head in with all guns blazing? Because that's just what they want," I say. "It's a trap. I'm sure the whole Imperial Navy is out there waiting for us."

"I'm sure they are, but I'm not sure we have much of a choice. We need to show the people of the Empire that we can protect them from their government."

"So. Show them next time. You'll get us all killed."

"Sometimes being a hero means doing the right thing."

"Being a hero is stupid."

"You're not very good at this whole Chosen One thing, are you?"

"I'm a model Jedi," I say quickly. "Let's go save all those guys immediately."

"Your family is down there," Coy gives me an odd look. "Don't you want to help them?"

"Yes," I say, "I'm a Jedi."

"Before you were lying though?"

I bite my lip. "Yes. I've got to go help them."

"Are you still lying?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"No," Coy admits, "We've been wasting enough time already. You're going to Tatooine."

"Won't I get killed though?"

Coy ignores this. "This is a great opportunity. We'll get footage of you in action, being the hero the people need you to be. Don't give me a silly excuse; I know you've seen more intense combat than most of my soldiers. You'll be fine."

"So what's the plan of attack?" I ask. "You've got a large fleet, but I'd assume you have nowhere near the firepower to take on the Empire."

"You'd be surprised." Coy sets down the datapad for the first time. "If you must know, this will short and sweet. Reports indicate there are three cities on the surface where they are currently rounding up and executing the inhabitants. We'll touch down, grab as many citizens as we can, destroy the Imperial's operation, and get away."

"That's it?"

"Well, no. But that's all you need to know. "

"They'll just keep killing more people as soon as we leave."

"War is about the little things," says President Coy, "It's the thought that counts. If we save your parents and hand the footage over to Menissa, she'll swing it like a public relations hammer and every man, woman and child in the galaxy is going to feel like shanking the first stormtrooper they see, because the almighty force and its pretty little herald are on their side."

Coy presses a button and the door slides open. Lyle Doggs enters, nods at me.

"Mr. Doggs," says Coy. "You will lead your strike to the surface of Tatooine to the Victors mansion on the outskirts of Mos Espa. There you will retrieve the Chosen One's mother and sister. You will then return to the fleet. Kara will go with you. The boy Edwin will also accompany you, to take holo-footage of Kara's endeavors. This will be a very dangerous mission. I am putting our new hope in your hands."

"It wouldn't be the first time, Madame President," Doggs grins. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"This ship is already en route to Tatooine," President Coy says. "Take Kara and prepare for your mission. I've sent all the details to your datapad, and the datapads of your men."

"Yes Ma'am."

"So do I get some body armor?" I ask. "Maybe a swoop bike."

"Not quite," says Coy. "You're a Jedi. You'll have to dress accordingly."

…

We go to a locker room that I'd never been to before. It is part refresher and part armory, filled with tough Republic soldiers getting ready for battle. They're wearing dark jackets and blue shirts over body armor. They also put on wide white helmets, and buckle holsters to their sides.

"Here's this," Edwin greets us, holding a bundle of clothing out to me. It's all tans and browns. I step around the corner and get changed alongside the female members of Doggs' squad (all three of them). They ignore me. If anything the Jedi-like clothing chafes even more this time. Perhaps since I'm imagining running, dodging and killing in it. I wonder if Menissa will even want to bother getting the bloodstains out when I turn it in.

"Over here," Doggs calls me as I'm doing up my belt. "Don't have any laser swords around these parts, unfortunately. However, you've got the pick of this weapons rack." He waves at a shelf hung with all kinds of blasters: small ones, long ones, even a few grenade launchers that look like they'd send me flying for yards from their recoil.

"The force is my weapon," I say.

"Cool," says Doggs. "In that case I think we're ready to move out." He begins to slide the rack back into the recess it came from.

"Wait a second, I'll take some stuff," I say quickly. I put a knife in my boot and stuff two pistols through my belt. I swing an assault rifle over my shoulder, and hold it with both hands to examine it. I've never used a blaster this big before. Looks like it'll be effective.

"Mine's bigger," says Edwin looking at my gun appreciatively.

"Yeah," I say, glancing at the metal apparatus in his hands. "Wait, isn't that a holo-recorder?"

"Of course," he says, "That's my job. It's a very specialized task too, these are very fragile instruments." There's a thunderous noise, and he almost drops it as the room shakes. "What the-"

"Looks like we've dropped out of hyperspace and into enemy fire," Doggs shouted. "It is on. To the shuttle, doubleplusquick!" He exits through a doorway opposite the one we entered through, and I follow the squad into hanger. It's a wide area filled with bustle, equipment, and fighters coming and going. Only a large force field set into the far wall protects us from the vacuum of space. Outside I can see blackness, stars, and the curvature of a sand-colored orb. Little orange explosions flare in space.

The Rebel squad forms ranks, and marches rapidly toward a nearby troop transport, with Doggs in the lead, chanting some marching song about shooting white armored faces. Edwin and I stroll along behind them.

"So did you get a blaster too?" I ask him.

"Yep," the pistol he shows me is far smaller than mine.

"Correction: did you get a _real_ blaster."

"It takes both hands to get the best possible holo," he pouts.

The ramp in the rear of the ship begins to retract before we're halfway up it. The wide doors clamp shut behind us. We take our seats at the back of the compartment, furthest from the door. The Rebel soldiers glower silently as the ship takes off.

"You've all read the briefing," Doggs calls, standing at the rear of the compartment. "We are landing on the grounds of a mansion at the outskirts of Mos Espa, while the rest of our troops will be landing elsewhere in the city and on the planet. Our goal is retrieval of a woman and her daughter, the Chosen One's family.

"Sensors indicate Imperial forces are spread pretty thin. On top of us they've already got a rebellion on their hands. There's hardly a landowner or card hustler on the planet that's not ready to pick up a blaster and defend themselves and their ilk. We are however landing at a primary target, so expect resistance."

The ship shudders, the seat vibrating beneath me. We're entering the atmosphere. "We do have a Jedi with us, but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security. She doesn't owe you anything. It is your responsibility to guard her with your lives. It would also be nice if the boy survived as well. The fewer casualties the better."

The ship shakes again; I picture us taking enemy fire. I wish I could see what was going on outside.

"Squad three will set up a perimeter," Doggs announces. "Squad two will enter the house and search downward, while I will lead squad one and pan the upstairs perimeter. Oh, and I call the Jedi. Team leaders will keep comlink contact with me and each other at all times. If they're killed this duty will pass to the next member of the team, you know how this works."

Doggs cleared his throat, as the team readies their weapons. "Today, we strike back at the Empire. Today we have our revenge. We will show them that we are strong, and that we will fight for the memories every man, woman and child they ever took from us! We will not-" he touches the side of his helmet, "Oh; I guess we're actually in position now. Get set!"

The soldiers stand and form ranks, as the floor shifts and pitches. We're coming in for a landing. I think I hear an explosion in the distance. I hope it's not on our ship. Edwin starts his holorecorder and points it at me, "Say something cool, before we get started."

"Our enemies underestimate the true powers of the force," I say deeply, "But they will not be able to deny the strength of our passion for freedom."

"That was great," Edwin says happily. I'd thought it was one of the stupidest things I'd ever said, but to each their own.

The door at the rear of the troop transport began to open, filling the room with bright light. "Game on," I whisper quietly.

"Ooh, a force games reference," says Edwin happily, "This is gold. Menissa's going to love this." And then were running with the squad, jumping off the ramp, our boots sinking into the sand. Energy bolts sizzle through the air.

We've landed in the courtyard of the victor's mansion; the heat of the suns warms my cheeks. We're outnumbered by almost twice as many stormtroopers. Some of them charge toward us, while others fire from the sides. Some troopers have taken cover behind crates and boxes they've heaped together, though it does them little good. White armored bodies are falling left and right.

I hop over a Rebel soldier, his face blasted away by a laser. Two large cannons have been set up, one on either side of the wall of the courtyard. One discharges and geyser of sand blasts into the air, along with the detached head and spinal column of a Rebel soldier. The other gun fires at the troop transport as it arches back into the air, melting a crater in its hull. I hope the ship is going to arch back around toward us. I don't fancy just getting left behind. The ship's cannon reduce portions of the stone wall to rubble, and its exhaust burns the creamy stone of my mansion's walls to black.

The blaster is warm in my hand, and doesn't kick nearly as strongly as I expect it to. My first shot takes a stormtrooper in the top of the head. He falls. I fire at another, but he successfully takes cover behind one of the metal crates.

A Rebel has made it to the top of the wall; he jumps up behind the stormtrooper controlling one of the cannons and clubs him out. He brings the cannon around and fires into the other gun, which explodes spectacularly, taking another large chunk out of the wall below it.

A Rebel beside me hurls a grenade before taking a blaster shot in the leg. It flies through and blasts a metal crate into the air, sending one stormtrooper flying and blasting the arm off another.

We've cleared a path to the armored door, and half of the Rebels head its way. A blast from the cannon we now control takes it off its hinges. At least three rebels lay dead in the sand, joined by many more stormtroopers. But heavy fire from the commandeered cannon is forcing the Imperials back. We leave squad three to mop things up and enter the mansion.

Four troopers are within, jogging toward the door, but we take them by surprise and riddle them with holes before they can even squeeze off a shot. At least one of them goes down by my hand.

My mansion is just as I remember it, all ostentatious and aristocratic. Lots of pretty stone and abstract art. Makes interesting contrast to the violence outside. It's less visceral, less real.

"Can you maybe force push somebody, throw some lightning?" Edwin asks me. He's trying to sound professional, but he can't stop shaking.

"Shut up," I tell him.

"This is where we split," says Doggs to one of his men. "Good luck." They bump fists, and five of the men head deeper into the house, while Doggs peeks through the door to a wide staircase. He makes some motion with his hands, and Edwin and I follow Doggs and four of his soldiers up the stairs. Edwin trips on the third step, and hurries after us. No one stops to help him.

"We go to the top, work our way down," Doggs orders when we reach a landing. It seems as though he wasn't the only one with that thought. We're halfway up the next flight when six stormtroopers come around the corner. Seeing us, they open fire. I hop backward as blaster fire burns the wall, and fight to keep my balance on the stairs.

Doggs reaches into his vest, and hurls a grenade down onto the stairs. Instead of flames and shrapnel, the stairwell fills with gray smoke with so much grey smoke I can barely see a few feet in front of my face. I hear blasterfire nonetheless, someone screams loudly, and Rebel soldier nearby grunts in pain.

A stormtrooper appears out of the smoke directly in front of me. I bring the stock of my rifle up, forcing his barrel toward the roof so he fires over my head. I shove him back, and Doggs grabs him by the neck, shooting him point blank through the head.

I back into Edwin, who swings his holorecorder like a club, knocking a stormtrooper back towards the wall. I spin and fire over Edwin's shoulder, taking the Imperial out.

As the smoke clears, the Rebels fire into the bodies of the Stormtroopers sprawled on the stairs, making sure they're dead. One of our men had been grazed by a blaster bolt; his skin is raw and scorched black beneath a hole on his sleeve. He slaps a few bacta patches on the wound, and shoulders his weapon as if nothing happened. Tough guy.

We come across no more resistance as we ascend the stairs and begin searching the top floor. We quickly scan several bedrooms and storage spaces. "Next time we find a trooper, we should interrogate it before killing it," Edwin says, "Find out where they are."

"That's actually a good plan," Doggs says, "Still, shut up."

We're looking at the pool area when Doggs gets a call on his radio. He taps the side of his helmet. "Uh-huh. Yes. Thanks. Over," to us he says, "Squad two just found them on the security feeds. We're close. They're just down the hall, but there are a lot of troopers." His face grows ashen.

"What is it, sir?" asks one of his men.

"No time," Doggs grunts, as we deploy back into the hall.

We turn the corner and head down a wide hallway lined by alcoves filled with sculptures my mother had made. If you paid attention they really documented her learning curve. We near the door at the end, and I feel a twinge in the back of my mind, almost like a physical wedge driven between my thoughts. Something behind us.

The man with the bacta patches sprawls forward, a hole in the back of his head. We dash to sides of the hall as stormtroopers sprint up behind us. We return fire, and the troopers take cover. Edwin knocks over the sculpture in his alcove, firing his pistol at the troopers. If there were any stormtroopers on the ceiling, he would have killed them.

Blaster bolts make black marks on the walls, but neither side is daring to risk our cover enough to get shot.

"I'll hold them off, sir," the soldier beside me tells Doggs, "So you can get the Jedi inside and retrieve the packages."

"We'll need at least two men to hold out," Doggs says.

"Edwin will stay," I say. His recording has started to make me uncomfortable, as if Coy was following me, always looking over my shoulder.

"I will?" Edwin asked shrilly.

"Good," says Doggs, "See you in a few." He throws two grenades down the hall, filling the air with flames and little pieces of metal, Doggs, two of his men and I take the opportunity to reach the door at the end of the hall and slip through. We're fortunate that it's unlocked, less fortunate that we find four number of stormtroopers beyond, pointing their weapons at us. We return the favor.

A door at the other side of the room leads to a balcony. Aside from the Imperial soldiers, the room is empty save for some sloppy paintings on the wall (each bearing my mother's signature) and three other occupants. Primith and my mother are cuffed to a pair of chairs, looking rattled, even frightened, but unharmed. A human imperial officer with a long thin face stands between them, a small blaster pistol in his hands. He looks familiar; I think I shook his hand when I was last on Tatooine for the Victory Tour.

"Drop you weapons," he says, "Or I shoot them."

"Drop yours, or I shoot you," says Doggs.

"My men are prepared to shoot to woman and child before you can take them out," says the officer.

"And my Jedi will stop the bolts in midair with her brain."

"Oh really," a single zap issues from the officer's pistol. Primith screams in pain and bursts into tears, the bolt had gone right through the meat of her calve.

Brute force wasn't going to win this battle, no matter how much I'd like it too. "Drop your weapons," I order Doggs and his men.

"No, I won't-" Doggs begin, but I turn on him, pointing my rifle at his face. Slowly, resignedly, he and his two soldiers lay their weapons on the floor. I follow suit, dropping my rifle, and laying my two pistols down beside it. I put my hands up, and loudly say "I surrender."

"Isn't it a little late for that?" the officer asks. "Rebel." Good, he doesn't just shoot me now that I'm unarmed. I read him right. Stupid.

"It was the only way," I say. "I couldn't have just surrendered to the Alliance. They would have killed me. It was all I could do to join the attack, hoping…praying…that I would be able to see my family again. That someone could keep me safe." I sniffle and squeeze a few tears from my eyes.

"What the hell…" Doggs stares at me.

"Don't Kara," my mother mouths at me.

I move toward the officer, my arms out almost as if to embrace him. "I just want to be safe."

"I…" he gapes. He also misses his last chance to shoot me. As soon as I'm close enough, I strike. I grab his arm, ripping the pistol from his hand and throwing it aside, breaking a finger or two in the process. I yank his arm behind his back. He stops struggling as soon as I press my knife into his throat.

The stormtroopers look lost, pointing their weapons everywhere, at me, at the Rebels, at my family. "Drop your weapons," I order them. "Drop them all, or I kill him."

I feel the officer's blood trickle down my fingers as the edge of my knife breaks his skin. "Do it," he sputters. "Do it now."

They obey. The Rebel takes their weapons, and aim blasters at each stormtrooper. Doggs free my mother and Primith. Primith is still crying, Doggs helps my mother put a few bacta patches on her wound.

"What more do you want?" the officer is hysterical. "Money? Supplies?"

"I think that's everything," I say and press my knife deep into his throat. His limp body collapses against me and I let it drop to the floor. "Kill them," I order, and triggers are pulled. White helmets clank against the floor.

Doggs gives me a withering look, biting his lip. "You're full of surprises Miss Evenstern."

"I could wish for better circumstances, but it's good to see you," says my mother, picking up an Imperial blaster.

"I know you'd come," Primith says weakly, and tries to stand, but her leg gives way beneath her. I move to support her, but one of Doggs' men beats me to it, lifting her onto his pack as if she were weightless. I pat her arm awkwardly, and grab my weapons.

"Package retrieved," says the other soldier, "let's move out," as he moves to the door. It flies open as Edwin dives through, firing wildly behind him as it slams shut behind him, locking it with a fist to the door pad.

"That other guy you left with me is dead," he shouts, "The Imps got reinforcements."

"The team from downstairs," Doggs curses.

"What?" I ask.

"They just killed squad two," he says, "Wiped them out, I heard it all over the radio."

"That's sad," says Primith airily, she's half unconscious from the pain.

"What's our way out? You know the house better than me," Doggs asks my mother.

"There's a balcony out there," she moves to the opposite door, even as the other one begins to hiss and smoke, the Stormtroopers forcing their way in.

"That'll have to do," Doggs says.

Half of us are out the door to the balcony by the time stormtroopers blast their way inside. The Rebel soldier without a wounded little girl on his back spins at the doorway, firing at the stormtroopers, shooting one fatally in the chest. I peer over the railing to the ground. Too far to jump.

Doggs takes a small canister from his belt fires a grappling hook into the stone of the deck, before hooking it to the belt of the soldier with Primith. "It holds about three people," he orders, shoving my mother at the soldier. "Go!" My family and the soldier disappear over the side.

Edwin and I join the soldier in firing into the room, but it seems as though for every trooper we kill, another steps over its corpse. I'd fought one stormtrooper hand to hand before. He'd been, a capable opponent, but it is only now that I understand the true Imperial military strategy: to overwhelm through sheer numbers.

My family has landed in the sand below, the detached grappling cord whips right back up, just as the Rebel soldier shoves Edwin back toward the railing, saving him from an energy bolt that the soldier takes in the gut. He falls to his knees.

I refuse to share his fate. I dive for the cord, snatching it out of Edwin's waiting hands. He wraps his arms around my waist, as I clamber over the railing.

Doggs fires into the Stormtroopers, even as his dying man waves him at to leave. "Save the Jedi, save the galaxy."

"Damn this," Doggs shouts, and dives at Edwin and I, catching hold of my shoulders as we go over the edge.

The seconds we spend in freefall seem to stretch out into minutes. I am aware of it all, the wind, the sun, the sand. If find myself wishing meditation was more like this.

"Say hello to your Emperor!" The dying soldier above us shouts, detonating every grenade in his belt. A plume of flame and black smoke bursts from above, the balcony shakes, pieces of masonry and mortar hit the sand around us as we land.

The courtyard is clear, save for the remnants of Dogg's squad, who are helping my family to cover. A few of them rush over to help us up, and at least one of them is felled by a blaster bolt.

A few stormtroopers survived the blast, and are firing down at us from the flaming art gallery above. I run for cover, Doggs pulling Edwin behind me, Edwin trying to point the holorecorder my way. Blaster fire strafes the sand.

"We need immediate evac!" Doggs shouts into his radio.

"Looks like they're coming as fast as they can," my mother points to a dot on the horizon, the troop transport coming back this way.

"Should have called them earlier," I scold Doggs.

Cannon fire extinguishes the Imperials above, as the cannon we commandeered on the wall turns on them, reducing the ruined wall into smaller pieces of rubble which rain down on the sand.

"Yeah, buddy!" The Rebel operating the cannon shakes his fist skyward, "That's the way to do-" He never finishes. A rocket sails out of the sky and the cannon disappears one of the flashiest explosions I've seen today.

Primith screams, as six big green monsters stampede into the courtyard.

Each dewback is ridden by a sandtrooper who promptly opens fire, felling Rebels left and right within instants. Their dewbacks might not be monsters, not technically, but they're mad as hell. One swings its tail and a Rebel goes flying, back broken. Another chomps down, sinking its teeth into a rebel soldier, almost tearing the man in half. I retreat from their powerful stomping feet, firing as I go, but the blaster bolts do little against their tough hide.

At least one sandtrooper flies off his mount, shot in the head. A grenade rips open a dewback's side; bloody intestines spill out into to the sand.

I manage to nail a dewback in the eye. Moaning, it runs into the wall, knocking the sandtrooper from its back. The sandtrooper scrabbles at the sand, looking for the dropped blaster rifle his mount just stomped to bits. He has to dive away quickly to avoid the same fate, as the manic, pained dewback rams into one of its brothers. Doggs tosses a grenade into the dewbacks open mouth, but it's only the flash-bang variety. The Dewback belches a cloud of smoke, and collapses to the sand.

Two more dewbacks are blown apart by cannon fire as the troop transport finally arrives. It comes to as stop hovering in the courtyard, bay doors open, blaster bolts pinging off its armored hull. Edwin is the first to vault aboard, closely followed by the soldier carrying Primith on his back.

I sprint for the ship, and go down hard in the sand. The sandtrooper I unseated a moment ago tripped me up. I struggle as his white armored hands clamp around my leg. I try and bring my rifle around, but he knocks the barrel away. Finally, he takes three blaster bolts in the back. My mother stands over him, Imperial blaster in her hand.

She reaches to me, pulls me to my feet, opens her mouth to speak. It's a tender moment, at least for her. I'm almost surprised when a blaster bolt goes right through her chest, vaporizing her heart.

The sounds of the battle seem to dull in my ears as I turn away. My mother's body falls on its face. I run, kicking up sand.

I leap into the bay just behind Doggs. He grabs me as I lose my balance. I was almost going to fall right out the back of the ship as we soar into the air. The doors shut behind us and somebody in the pilot's seat punches the accelerator. I catch the first deep breath I've had in a while.

Primith's soldier has set her down on a bench and taken a med kit to her leg. Her face is red and sweaty. "Where's mom?" she asks, over and over.

"I'm sure your mother is going to be fine, just like you," the soldier insists, "Now hold still." I figure he might not have seen what I saw.

I look to Doggs, who is staring wide-eyes at Edwin. "How come you survived when practically my entire team didn't make it?"

"Um, healthy living," Edwin flushed.

The whole compartment shakes, I grab Doggs arm to keep my footing. Edwin's not so lucky and hits his knees on the bench. Another shake follows; I think I can smell something burning.

"I'll be in the cockpit," Doggs says, heading toward the front of the ship. I follow him, Edwin just behind me, hands on the walls to brace him up as we encounter turbulence.

I find the woman in the pilot's seat to be surprisingly petite. It's a wonder she can reach the pedals. The surface of Tatooine whips away before us, buildings of yellow and reddish clay and stone: Mos Espa. "Why haven't we broken orbit?" Doggs demands.

"It's all I can do to keep our fuselage intact, sir!" the pilot chirps. She points at her sensor display, "There's a pair of eyeballs on our tail."

If I look out the corner of the window as our ship curves in a slow arc over the city I can just glimpse a TIE fighter. The buildings below us are riddled with blaster fire. I feel the impact as a few more bolts hit our hull.

"Well I suggest you lose the bastards before I finally get around to growing that mustache," Doggs orders gruffly. Edwin giggles, and Doggs aims a kick at his shin.

"Hold onto your helmets," the pilot says happily, "Let's see if they can play rough." She yanks back on a pair of levers. I almost go flying forward into the windshield as the ship lurches to a stop, starting to fall toward the ground.

Not expecting our sudden deceleration, the TIE fighters zip right past us. The pilot kicks the thrusters back into gear and lets loose with the cannons before the imperials can arc around.

The blaster cannons hit one TIE fighter head on, swallowing it in a ball of flame. Unfortunately, it smoldering severed wing arcs toward us from the wreckage, spinning like a saw.

"And my day was going so well," Doggs sighs, as the wing goes past the cockpit and cuts right into our engines. I grab the wall with both hands, and Edwin grabs a handful of my arm, as we tip backward and drop.


	6. Chapter 6

**Part Two:**

**The Assault**

Chapter six:

Bags of air inflate throughout the cockpit, cushioning us as the ship hits the building below with a scream of tearing metal. Despite the safety features, the impact still throws me across the pod, roughly slamming Doggs into the wall along the way. I swallow the bile that's emerged in the back on my mouth. Smoke lazily drifts through the cabin.

"No way through here," Edwin calls up. Rubbing the bruises on my elbows, I crane my neck around to look at him. He's jabbing at the door to the main compartment. "I think the door is jammed."

"The girl's down there," Doggs says, pressing a wrist against his bleeding nose. "We've gotta get her out before this wreck gets anymore inhospitable."

"Or any more stormtroopers can pay us a visit," Edwin agrees.

"Guess we ought to take the long way around," the pilot yanks a lever, and the ceiling of the cockpit hisses open. "Emergency exit," she smiles. "Don't leave home without it."

I follow her, climbing out into the sunlight. It is nothing more than a short hop to the ground, the ship had mostly gone through the roof into a suburban, and now-partially collapsed, storefront.

Doggs is the last to emerge from the ship, after given Edwin a leg up. The boy still clutches his holorecorder. He turns and tries to climb back into the ship as soon as we see the silhouette in the sky. The TIE fighter we hadn't shot down is coming about for another pass. I'd hoped it would have thought we'd perished with the ship and decided not to spend any further effort on us. No such luck.

Green energy beams rip up the rooftops in front of us as the TIE fighter comes straight toward us. The other three take cover, but I've had enough of that. I'm done. I feel done. No more running. I shoulder my rifle and take a deep breath.

I sense. I feel my surroundings; reach out to the TIE in my mind. I smell its fuel, feel the heat of its engines, hear the heartbeat of the man behind the throttle. I raise my rifle up to my shoulder and close my eyes a split-second after I pull the trigger.

I can feel the life the life leave the TIE pilot as my blaster bolt splits his skull. I laugh as I see the look on his face in my mind's eye.

And the TIE still screams toward us. Towards me. It's not stopping, why would it? It's nothing more than a huge metal projectile now. I fire again and again and then my rifle is spent, the blaster's energy pack depleted. I shrug off the gun and throw it aside.

I raise my hands, palms out, fingers splayed, and exhale. Why not? I feel the TIE in my mind again, sense every facet, and visualize what I want. I reach deep inside and deep outside too, casting and projecting my mind. There's heat on my face for real this time, not just my mental manifestation of it, and I open my eyes.

The TIE hangs. The fighter is suspended in the air just above me, just before me. I've got it; I'm holding it, carrying it. It's not that I'm not touching it. Just my body isn't. My mind holds it, wraps all around it. The force. That's what people call this. I rear it back and throw. The TIE smashes down through the roof of the building across from me and compacts into a tangle of broken gray and black.

Edwin, Doggs and the pilot come out and join me. "That was really stupid," Edwin says.

"Eh?" It wasn't exactly the reaction I'd expected.

"You were fine, I mean this machine," he raps his knuckles on his recorder. "Couldn't get it booted up in time."

"Nice going, kid, very nice," I'm not sure which one of us Doggs is referring to. "There's some stairs over there, let's use them."

As we enter the staircase, the pilot of our crashed vessel takes my hand and shakes it. "I've decided I'd like you to fly with me on every mission I'll ever have from now on for the rest of my life," she explains, "That'd be great."

"Mm," I say.

"Just look up Antilles, Syra in the duty roster and you'll know which girl to throw ships out onto the ground with," she suggests. "If you want of course, I'm not ordering you or anything."

"Of course," I say. "I'm sure that's far from the last TIE fighter I'll be throwing on the ground."

The back end of our ship had burned shredded and generally crushed most of the store's homemade merchandise. At least it seemed as though the shop had been closed at the time, making our landing a lot less messy. From the ragged, jagged and dismantled look of our thrusters, this ship wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. Unlike the Rebel fleet, they were probably revving to go. I figured we'd have to hijack some other form and transport and head on up out of the atmosphere, the sooner the better.

"Hey, little girl," Syra called through a long slit torn through the side of the hull.

"Primith," I told her.

"Primith," Syra corrected. "Are you alright."

"I'm here," Primith calls faintly. "My leg hurts really bad."

"Don't worry, we'll get you out," Syra tells her. "I think. Hopefully."

"What about that other soldier," Edwin asks the crack in the hole.

"I don't think he's doing so well," Primith says, "He got thrown really hard. He's not moving. I can barely reach him, but what I can touch is really, really sticky. I think its blood."

"Okay," I call to her. "I'm here. You're safe."

"I think," Doggs says grimily, pointing out the main doors, "There're some folks here who beg to differ."

A big gray speeder had just pulled up in front of the shop, and dozens of stormtroopers poured out of the back.

They tromp up the steps and through the doorway on their big white boots, though a series of blaster bolts from Syra and Doggs take some of their number out of commission.

We fall back toward the stairs, but the Stormtroopers cut us off with a hail of energy bolts, forcing us to take cover against the frame of the ship we'd driven through the ceiling.

"Of all the times to be out of grenades," Doggs curses. A blaster bolt scores a jagged slice through the armored hull over my head. Syra fires and stormtrooper sprawls, holding his leg in agony.

"What's going on out there?" Primith voice drifts from the belly of the ship. "Are we under attack?"

"You could call it that," Doggs calls to her, firing his weapon, "Please stand by.

Syra takes a blaster bolt through the arm and falls with a scream. Edwin catches her and lowers her gently to the ground. I check out her wound. She'll be fine if we can get her to a good medic and large supply of bacta in the near future. This is becoming less and less likely, the stormtroopers are closing in despite Doggs efforts. They're going to overwhelm us and kill us all.

So I might as well force it.

I reach deep inside me. It's still there, a sleeping beast that's just as fierce when I wake it as it was with a TIE fighter falling out of the sky toward it. I feel the force. I sense every detail; feel every emotion from everyone in the room. Almost two dozen troopers. One side doesn't stand a chance, and for the life of me I can't decide whether it's us or them.

Edwin checks his blaster, makes a move to open fire again, but I put my hand over his, pointing his gun downward. I tap the holorecorder on his lap. "I have a feeling you're going to want to catch this."

I close my eyes, but I can still see. I crouch and then propel myself upward, jumping, kicking off the hull of the damaged vessel.

I am airborne far longer than I have any right to be, landing with my boots planted right on a white armored chest. As the Stormtrooper falls under my weight, I fire once to each side, holding out a blaster in each hand. I kill two men before finishing off the one below me.

I stand tall and fire my blaster pistols before me, behind me, on every side and angle. The troopers are so slow. Their bolts hang in the air, creeping toward me at a cautious pace, unable to redirect as I step out of the way. They can't touch me, not unless I let them.

And I don't let them. I let them die instead. That's what I can see, only death. The chinks in their armor, the weak spots, the vitals. My vision focuses, I home, everything else blurs together. I put a blaster shot in every sweet spot I can find.

It's only a second or two till the enemy fire forces me to move. It feels like so much longer. I leap to the side, flip, my legs swing over my head, and I land in a crouch, shooting upwards. I dive forward, roll, slam into a Stormtroopers legs, knock him over, kill him, stand, leap, slam my heel into a white armored head.

I land and dart behind a trooper, wrap my arms around his neck as I shoot him up under the chin with my left hand, frying his brain. My right arm is out, my trigger finger pumping, troopers go tumbling. The body I hold collapses against me, and I let it shield me, his armor catching their shots. I kill at least three more men. I wonder how many I'm at now. I haven't been counting, haven't been paying attention to how many are in the room. A lot less, I'm sure.

A stormtrooper I am aiming at falls a second before my shot can nail him. There's a knife in his neck. I raise an eyebrow. I didn't throw that.

More combatants flood the room, join the fray. Youth wearing torn clothes and spiky jewelry, different races all covered with tattoos, piercings and the substance-abuse enhanced grunge. They're all kinds of armed. Some fire blasters, some swing chains and clubs, some have both. At least one carries a modified blaster cannon, literally blowing the troopers apart.

Before long every stormtrooper is dead, and I'm standing alone, surrounded by bodies and the blaster barrels my old gang is pointing at me.

It's been awhile since I've seen any of the Jayze.

I'm not the only one who thinks so. "It's been awhile," says Galen, stepping out to face me. I reach out to _feel _his mind. What was once so soft and pliable has gone hard a callous. That is just a blaster in his belt and he isn't happy to see me.

"Drop them," he says.

I don't drop anything. Least of all my blasters.

"Drop your pistols," says Galen.

I twirl one of them in my hand.

"Old habits," I look him in the eye.

"Die hard," Galen finishes, and nods to the corner where Doggs and Edwin are being held captive, restrained by a few large human and Rodian youths, jabbed at with several weapons. Doggs in particular put up a fight, if his assorted bruises are any indication. Syra lies at their feet, also at gunpoint though she's mostly delirious from pain.

I can probably shoot down their captors, the Jayze holding them prisoner. However it would be hard to do so and avoid death myself. Not a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

The force was retreating now, where my awareness and abilities had been heightened, I now just felt exhausted, drained, spent. I toss my pistols to the sandy floor. I rake a hand through my sweaty hair, look around at my old gang, not a one of them is as angry as Galen. They remembered me. They'd even follow me. Obey me if he was gone. They respected power, strength. That was part of what had drawn me to them in the first place. Sever the head, become the head. I could do that.

"You did this," Galen accuses me. "You brought the Empire down on us. You betrayed this planet. You betrayed us."

"Betrayal?" I ask. "I'm still fighting the authorities every day, every way. Just a whole lot more effectively now. We're getting to them now. That's what this whole debacle ought to show you."

"All I see is one little bitch who only cares about herself."

"I was missing my true calling, yeah," I admit. "But there's not a Jayze who wouldn't look out for number one if they got my chance, am I right?" I wave at the surrounding gang members. "I saved your asses before, remember? When I came back from that tour? We're even."

Galen takes out his gun, points it at my chest. "With them maybe, not with me. You cast me aside, you played me, and I'll never let anyone get away with that."

"So you're going to shoot me down like a coward?" I ask. "Who's doing the casting aside now."

He steps toward me, still pointing his gun, saying nothing.

"You always were a bit a slow," I say, "Hell, there's a reason why I brought reading material to bed every night."

A little exaggeration goes a long way, anger flashes across his face, and I strike before it leaves. I grab the pistol, twist it from his hands, jab it up under his neck. "Not that I'm bitter," I tell him, "You were always good for a little practice." I shove him back with my palms.

Holding up his gun for my gang to see, I eject the power cell. With the metal stock in my hand, I swing my fist, punching Galen full across the face. He stumbles to the side, his mouth all bloody. I toss the rest of the gun into the dust.

"You all deserved better," I shout at my gang. "Any one of you could have been me. I'm going to save every last one of you."

That's when a huge hornlike blast of sound deafens us all. A large transport ship sporting heavy cannons hovers above the street, a blue Rebel symbol imprinted on its side. A woman's voice booms from the ship, "Put down your weapons and step away from the Rebels or you will be fired upon."

"I play for the big boys now," I tell the Jayze, and they hesitantly set down their weapons.

"We are pulling back," the ship shouts, "The Empire is razing this planet, bombers are one their way to every major city even now. You are welcome to enlist in the Rebel Alliance and come with us, or stay here and die."

There's not a single member of the Jayze that doesn't swarm into the back of the transport. I flow right in with them, and stand in silence for a moment, drifting back and forth on my heels. A few Rebel soldiers return to the transport with some heavy cutting tools, and my sister Primith who they just liberated. Doggs, Edwin, and Syra are all whisked away to receive medical attention, attention I refuse. I look around for Galen, but all I see are some drops of blood splattered on the leather seats.

"So how'd I do?" Zanna steps into the bay to join me. I recognize her voice now as the one over the loudspeaker.

"You satisfied me for sure," I say.

"Thanks, I figured I had to do my part, and when you got shot down I managed to throw my reputation around to come down and pick you up."

"So we lost the planet?" I ask.

"What'd you expect? Of course we did, but it was a hell of a fight and the Empire is down a whole lot of Star Destroyers. How about you, did you get what you came for?"

"Half of it."

"I'm sorry," Zanna makes a face. "They'll pay in time. Any good stories for the troops?"

"That," I say, "Will not be an issue."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter seven:

"How is she?"

"We've been able to heal her injury. She'll probably limp a little for the rest of her life, seems like that's the only real side effect. But…"

"But what?"

"The psychological damage is more permanent. Textbook PTSD. Oh, and she's grieving. Keeps crying whenever she wakes up."

"Let me see her."

"She's resting. She's still not very-"

"Let me see her," I say again.

"Very well," the doctor (a human female called Gates) gives in easily. "Just a moment."

She leads me through the sick bay, which seems surprisingly unoccupied considering that the Rebel Alliance had just had its biggest battle since the Galactic Civil War. The reason was simple; nearly all of the refugees and soldiers from Tatooine had been loaded onto different ships. I think we even have a few medical ships in the fleet, though I 'm still a bit grey on all the details.

As far as I could tell my ship had been the only one to return to the _Krayt_. I had been whisked off to sick bay and then thoroughly debriefed by several Rebel officers including President Coy herself. Then it was back to existence as usual.

Menissa hadn't had any need of me; she said she had a great deal of material to work through from the recordings Edwin had taken. So instead of acting in holos, I lost myself in my studies.

I had told Thea about what I'd been able to do on the planet and she was very pleased. "The conflict and loss of life is, as usual, regrettable," She'd said, "But this shows you're making real progress. Sometimes force abilities are a gradual thing, but sometimes you get backed up into a corner and it all comes out. This is like the fourth or fifth time that's happened to you, according to what you say, and it sounds like you're closer than ever to controlling it. Now stand on your head."

Once my head was well and truly buzzing, I decided I'd rather visit my sister.

"We've healed her injuries to best of our ability," Gates tells me when we reach the doorway, "She just needs a lot of rest. Seeing you will be good for her, as long as you only take a few minutes." Gates lets me in and shuts the door behind me.

The room is small and simple, but not uncomfortable. I'm reminded of my own experience waking up on the _Krayt_ after a traumatic rescue. Her face is dry and her eyes are bloodshot. Primith Evenstern lies on her back, staring up at the ceiling, the blankets drawn up to her neck. One might say the effect makes her look vulnerable, weaker, but all I notice was that she is taller than I remembered from living with her. She's been growing recently.

"Hello, little one," I say nonetheless.

"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" says Primith.

I sit down at her side on the bed. "What's that supposed to mean."

"You killed her," she says.

"Mother?"

She nods once.

"I didn't-"

"You did. It's your fault. You don't think, you just do, and what you do is hurt people and break things. All those troopers, the Empire, this whole war, it's all you. You in the Games, you started it all. It's your fault. You killed her."

"I wasn't going to disagree," I say, "I was going to say I didn't do it on purpose."

"I wish you never volunteered for me," Primith says quietly. "Then only I would be dead, and not thousands and thousands of other people across the galaxy. And mother would be alive. And she'd have you to take care of her, and you'd have your old life and you could still wander around the streets and steal cars and do drugs and make out with your friends instead of beat them bloody."

"You've been thinking about what to say to me for a long time, haven't you?"

"Yeah."

"Do you really mean it though?"

"No," she admits. "Maybe. Sort of. I don't know what to do with myself now. What to be. Life…"

"Life means nothing," I say. "Just pick something that you think is good and then do it. That's all there is. Passes the time, so you might as well."

"Did you think about that for a long time?"

"No," I say. "Well, maybe. Indirectly."

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

"It's not something you feel," I say. "It's something you don't feel, and that's the point. Or lack of point."

"You really are a Jedi," Primith whistles.

"I'm learning," I say (although I doubt Thea would agree with Primith's preconceptions on Jedi thought).

Primith squeezes my hand. "Don't leave me again."

"I thought you were mad at me."

"Of course," she says.

"I'll talk to…whoever's in charge of housing," I say. "You can stay in my quarters. I'll get bigger ones."

"They'll let you?"

"I'm kind of the Chosen One."

"Right," says Primith. "You don't seem any different to me."

"That's because I'm not," I say, and pull my comlink out of my pocket. "Want to see something cool?"

…

"That's pretty cool," says Zanna, watching intently as I levitate my comlink above my hand. I toss it up into the air and catch it.

"I like it," I say, putting the communication device back on my belt. Zanna and I sit across from each other in the miss hall, sparingly picking at our ration packs. I've always told myself that food is fuel, energy I needed to keep on running, keep on living, but sometimes I just wasn't hungry. That'd been happening more and more frequently of late.

"That's a nice little trick," Zanna says, "But I figure it means just about nothing compared to the stories I've been hearing about what you pulled off on Tatooine. Throwing ships out of the sky.

"Edwin must be talking," I say.

"I heard it from that Antilles girl actually," says Zanna, "But he's been talking you up too, I'm sure. How'd you learn to do that?"

"Practice," I say, "Studying a bit."

Zanna sips from her glass of red liquid. I consider but refrain from asking what it contains. "Studying what?"

I shrug. "Coy set me up with some teachings of the old Jedi order. They're a bit uptight about some things but they can sure teach a girl to float objects around."

"Maybe I could take a look sometime?" Zanna suggests. "I mean, all us victors are force-sensitive right? I might be able to learn a thing or too. I'd love to kill people with my brain." She pauses as a few Rebel soldiers pass our table on the way out of the mess hall, "Only bad people of course."

"Sure," I lie, "That might work." I've already decided I'm never sharing Thea with anybody. There's something about being the most powerful person in the room that just appeals to me.

I watch as most of the Rebel soldiers and crewmen leave the room, receiving orders over their communicators, their downtime interrupted. "I wonder if there's something going on." Zanna muses.

"There would have to be," I say, "I just wonder whether it's something that matters."

Neither of us says it, but the idea of an Imperial fleet catching up to us is a very poignant one. I try to focus, looking for the feeling and thoughts on the men leaving the room, trying to find what was going on. Some nervous energy, some excitement and a few images of Imperial ships are all I can pick up on before Zanna interrupts me.

"Did you get Fenric's holo?"

"It's not an attack," I say.

"What?"

"We aren't being attacked. It's something else," I say. "If we were being attacked, I could tell."

"I can't wait to read that Jedi stuff you've been looking at," Zanna gives me an odd look.

"Oh, and I didn't get his holo," I say.

"He said he called and you weren't in, so he left you a message," Zanna explained.

"How're things going for him?" I asked conversationally. Fenric was on his homeworld, some water-filled planet called Glee Anselm, with an undercover Alliance delegation, trying to convince his people to ally with the Rebels.

"Well," said Zanna, "He figures they'll be coming around soon."

Good. They wouldn't be the first, more and more planets, factions and companies were allying with the Rebel Alliance. The battle of Tatooine had become a PR disaster the likes of which the Empire hadn't seen since Alderaan.

"I'm carting off too," Zanna says after a pause and another bite (in that order). "That's partly why I wanted to see you today. Anything could happen. Just look at your family…uh, I mean, sorry." She finishes uncomfortably.

"No big deal," I say. "Where are you headed?"

"Fenric's not the only one with loyalties the Rebellion can exploit," Zanna says.

"The Falleen?" I ask.

"Not exactly," Zanna makes a face, which her reptilian physiology makes all the more distinctive. "A friend of a friend of a friend has some influence in sphere of great influence. So do my parents."

"Son of a bitch," I realize what she's talking about. "You're going to talk to Black Sun."

"Yeah. Just a bit," says Zanna. "I mean I know they're all dangerous and corrupt but-"

"Are you kidding? This is the best idea Coy's ever had. If there's one alliance that can really turn the war in our favor, it's with Black Sun." Sure, the criminal organization would slit your throat and rob you blind in a moment's notice (and usually in that order) but a little bit of credit and a whole lot of promises could go a long way. I knew their type. Hell, I was their type.

"Just be careful," I tell Zanna.

"Thanks. But I can handle myself pretty well."

"No, I mean be careful not to screw this up."

"Right. I'll handle that too."

My comlink chimes. I pick it up and levitate it against my ear (never gets old). "Hello."

"Kara," President Coy herself is on the other end. "Would you come down to the medical bay right now?"

"I was just finishing up," I say, "Is it-"

"Your sister is fine," says Coy. I'd been about to inquire about my own health, but I don't correct her. "If fact this isn't even bad news, not necessarily. Just something you should see."

"I'll be there soon," I say.

"Oh, and bring Zanna too," Coy hangs up.

I glance at Zanna. I'm learning how to pry into people's thoughts, sure, but I still have a ways to go till I can catch up to President Coy and her surveillance devices.

…

We find President Coy standing calmly in the medical bay, surrounded by doctors and soldiers. Doggs is the first to greet us, and he gives my hand a shake. I haven't seen him since we returned the_ Krayt _together.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"We detected a single imperial ship drifting in our path," Doggs explains. "Crippled and defenseless, only the life support was intact. So we pulled it in."

"What did we find?" Zanna asks.

"Signs of a struggle," Coy joins the conversation, "The entire crew was killed. There was one living man on the ship, lying unconscious among the dead. It looked as though he killed them all."

"He wouldn't say?"

"He's some kind of coma, we haven't been able to rouse him," says one of the doctors. I think it was Gates.

"That's interesting," I say. "But why call us down immediately."

"Show them," Coy orders, and Gates passes over a datapad with a live video feed.

"Now that's a face I wasn't expecting to see again," says Zanna.

We see an unconscious Kiffar lying on the bed. Vaynich. Former victor from Tatooine, and my 'mentor' from the Force Games.

"Sometimes…people like you," Coy hesitates, I'm sure she almost said 'Jedi', "Are known to inhabit trance-like states. We figured a visit from his friends might have an effect on bringing him to greater consciousness."

"Friends might be a strong word," Zanna admits.

"We'll try," I say. I've never tried to use the force to wake someone up before, figure it'd be worth a shot.

"Gates, Doggs, accompany them," Coy orders. Gates leads us away to a door.

"This is a bit of a waste of time," She tells us quietly. "I've still got dozens of stimulant combos lined up that we haven't tried."

"Still," Doggs tells us, "The Chosen One tends to have a particularly surprising effect on her environment."

Vaynich lies on the bed within, breathing softly. There's stubble on his cheeks, and it looks as though he's lost a little weight. The Quarter Quell is good exercise. I stretch out my hands; feel for his energy with my mind. I reach down to touch his forehead-

His eyes snap open.

Vaynich launches from the table, throwing his bedclothes aside, his hands wrap around my neck. He squeezes, practically crushing my windpipe. He's strong; it's the strongest strangulation grip I've ever experienced.

Doggs leaps into action, and Vaynich hurls me aside. I slam into the wall, and watch as Vaynich grabs a handful of Doggs' face, and rips the blaster from the man's belt. I push myself away from the wall as he points the barrel of the blaster at me.

The gun goes off, but I'm already falling to the floor. The energy goes over my head and rips the side off Gates's face. She spins into the wall, leaving a long red smear as she slides to the floor.

Vaynich's next shot goes into the ceiling as Zanna forces his arm upwards, he strikes at her but Doggs catches hold his other hand, ignoring the blood streaming from his own nose.

Soldiers and doctors flood into the room, and a struggling Vaynich eventually drifts into peaceful unconsciousness with the help of several tranquilizers.

Coy looks down at me, doesn't offer me a hand up. "Seems you irritate him even more than I'd heard," she says dryly.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight:

"Are you ready for the procedure?" asks the new chief doctor. He's a thin, angular man with a fair more nervous disposition than Gates had had. Then again, it might serve him well. A little nervousness goes a long way to keeping you from getting your face shot off.

"It's not so much a procedure…" I say. "More of just a…thing."

"A Chosen One thing?"

"Yeah."

"Fine," he says. "I figure you can't make him any worse. Do you want any help, any backup?"

"I'd better go in there alone," I say.

"You seem to rub him the wrong way, at the slightest sign of trouble I'll-"

"No you'd better wait for my signal," I say. "That's an order by the way."

"Even if he kills you?"

"Well I wouldn't be in any position to give any signal at that point, so you could stop waiting and move on to any remaining duties you may have."

"I…" He starts to reply, but we've already reached the room. I swipe the key card from his lanyard, and open the freshly unlocked door.

"Just be-"

"Pleasant. I'll try," I say. He says something about being careful instead as I shut the door.

Vaynich jolts awake as soon as I entire. Every muscle strains as he tries to the reach me, but the collection of straps and harnesses binding him to bed do their job. It's the second time he's been awake since the Rebels picked him up. He had fallen deep into unconsciousness when I left the room after he tried to kill me earlier.

You'd think he was some kind of sleeper agent.

That was exactly what the entire medical staff thought.

They'd examined him fully, and the only sign of tampering they found were some traces of drugs, sedatives and steroids. When revived with a mixture of chemicals he wouldn't even move, let alone communicate. Seemed like only the sight of me would rouse him, and the rousing took a particularly violent form.

Or so it seemed, this was only the second time I'd seen him, and we'd only found the guy about twenty-four hours ago. He could just be having a really bad day.

Zanna and I had talked to Coy about the situation. She agreed that he seemed to be very out of character. She also considered him a major security risk, and understandably so. It was decided that he'd be moved to the highest security brig in the fleet, on one of those stolen modified warships that kept tagging along with us. But it was also decided, thanks to Zanna's suggestions primarily, that first I would see what I could do.

"Hello again," I say aloud. "Can you hear me?"

Vaynich growls deep in his throat.

"Can you speak to me?" I ask slowly. "What did they do to you? What are you thinking?"

He struggles with his restraints all the more and I figure that's the only answer I'm going to get.

So I reach into his mind and run right into a wall.

Telepathy is a very abstract thing, difficult to explain in the words of galactic basic. When my mind touches the consciousness of others, I still don't feel like I get the whole picture. Just waves of emotion that pulse and ebb, inflating and deflating like a lung. Pieces of feelings flowing inward and outward, half-formed images strewn about. I wonder if there is even a whole picture to glimpse. Maybe what I can actually feel is all there is.

But not with Vaynich. My mental probe just stops, halts, bends and dissipates reforms and repeats. There is a wall around his mind. All around it. I have no idea how to react.

But Vaynich does. There's a sharp crack as something in his left arm snaps…and it's free. He's pulling at the rest of his restraints, wriggling and forcing his way out. I see it all in the background, like out of the corner of my eye. He's fighting the bed, tearing at cloth and metal and cord and then he's freed. Leaping toward me, pouncing like a predator. Like a Jedi.

I catch him in midair. With my brain. He hangs, suspended by my force. His fingers inches from my nose. I punch him.

Not with my fists. I wrench up my consciousness and punch the wall before me. Again and again and again and it chips and chips away and the cracks spread and the strength crumbles and it all shatters and I'm through.

I become pain.

I've felt pain before. I've been injured plenty of times. More than most people, I figure. But not like this. This is pain of the mind. This is anger and fear and hate and depression and remorse and everything that hurts all wrapped up together. I've learned about emotion, felt it a little bit, but I've always been detached from it, ostracized by it. I don't get it. I don't see it. I don't understand it like other people do.

Now I do, and it floors me.

My muscles relax, my knees buckle, and I crumple to the floor. Vaynich slams down and scrabbles toward me, atop me, scratching and biting and punching at me. I'm loose, limp immobile; I fight back in the only way that feels natural. By pushing through the pain.

I see things. Metal all around. Computers and beds. Needles glinting and multicolored liquid bubbling. Day after day of machines and minds and pictures of me. I see myself and I feel it all. Anger, pain, hate, Kara Evenstern has become synonymous for them. But above me, behind me, past the vision of myself I see of myself is a mysterious dark robed figure. I feel I should recognize him, like we've been watching each other for a long long time.

I reach out to embrace him. To embrace it all. All that pain, all that emotion. I take it and squeeze them away. I see myself again, but push away the fear, the horror, the conditioning. I watch myself through another's eyes. Sitting with Perrin, laughing with Osca, drinking with my mother, fighting with Gurog.

There are other faces like mine. A sea of them. Victors. Senators. Kiffar after Kiffar, a whole family of them. I hold Sharon the Togruta, kissing her in the rain. She's light in my arms and I can feel her in parts I don't even have. With that I'm myself again. An outsider looking in, so the voyeur retreats. Out the way I came, filling in the walls behind me.

I'm back in my own head. Breathing heavily on the floor, Vaynich sprawled over me, unconscious again. I slowly pull myself up, leaning against the wall as the door slides open. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, tears blur my vision.

"What…" is all the articulate doctor can say.

"He was tortured," I say. "Conditioned. They turned him into a weapon and sent him to kill me. I don't think he's going to kill me. Not anymore. But he's going to need your help. A lot of it."

"How about you?" he asks. "You seem pretty much in shock. Not to mention those scratches and bruises. Let me the get the salve-"

"No."

"You need to get taken care of so-"

"No, I've had enough being taken care of," I say. I'm all empty, now that I've felt so much so fiercely and now it was gone. "I've had enough of people."

…

The water scalds me. I let it, pay it no mind. It doesn't hurt, not the way my head does.

I left Vaynich and the doctors and the medbay all alone, came right here to the deserted locker room, stepped into the shower. There I stayed. Plenty of people came and went, I felt their minds passing in and out of focus, but still I stayed. There were restrictions, limits, provisions for saving water. I was above all those.

It wasn't the only thing I was above. I knew what emotions were. I had feelings. I guess I did at least. Other people just seemed to make a lot bigger deal of it than I, hold more stock in it, trust them, listen to them, live for them. Alright, maybe I didn't have them or maybe mine just flowed more into everything else. They didn't get in the way. Not like that emotion, his emotion, the hate and the fear I'd felt roiling around inside Vaynich was beyond anything I'd imagined. It was the most intense thing I'd ever felt. Hell, one of the most intense things I'd ever done in general. It still hurt.

Tears intermittently trace down my face, salt water mixing with fresh. I don't remember the last time I cried, other than tears of pain forced out of me by bodily trauma. It was like the emotions had gotten under my skin, past my defenses, through my shield. Taken control, and I couldn't help it. I can't stand that.

So I decide I won't. I take breath after breath, work on what Thea had taught me. I just let it go. Box it up; throw it away, whatever shoe fits. I put all my strength of will into calming my mind. It doesn't work, not completely, but I get better. I am able to think straight at least by the time I finally turn off the water.

My skin is bright red and I breathe steam all the way back to my locker. I'm toweling off, my wet face deep in a shroud of white cloth, when I feel the familiar mind approach me.

"What do you want this time?" I say into my towel.

"Can't you just read my mind?" asks Galen.

"It's a lot vaguer than that," I lower my towel and wrap it around myself before I turn to face him.

"You always used to want everything to be clear and to the point," says Galen, almost remorsefully.

"My life isn't so simple anymore."

"That's something we have in common," says Galen. He's wearing black from head to toe, but his t-shirt has a small rebel emblem emblazoned on it above his heart. The shirt also looks just a fraction too small.

"They signed you up already?" I ask.

"I didn't have much a choice," he says. "Did you?"

"I'm the Chosen One," I say. "I am the choice. I don't always make my own."

"Now you even talk like a Jedi."

"Do you know how Jedi talk?"

"My gran always said that riddles were involved."

"Is that what you came to ask me about? If I'm being forced into this life, into some grand scheme? So you can sweep me away and erase everything that's gone on between us since my sister was reaped."

"I came to talk. The erasing will come in time."

"Like hell it will."

"Look, you know how hard it is for me to say something like this," Galen puts his hands in his pockets. "I thought I had something with you, turns out I didn't. But I was rash. We're already in different worlds. If we're going to fight on the same side, fight the same people, I'd rather not be fighting each other."

"Fine."

"Is that forgiveness."

"It's apathy. I really don't give a fuck."

"That's what forgiveness always meant to me."

I open my mouth, but choke on my next words.

"Are you crying?" Galen's eyes are wide. He's never seen me like this before. Hell, I've never seen me like this before.

The walls of calm and serenity are breaking down, all the hurt and hate from Vaynich's brain is leaking through the cracks and I can't stop it. I almost can't even breath, that's how strong it is. I'm drowning.

And warm fingers brush my face.

I reach up and swipe his wrist away.

I let it all go again. I find the way. I can't thrust the anger down inside. But I can pour it all out. "Don't. Touch. Me," I hear my voice as if from far away, as I watch Galen fly across the room and slam into a row of lockers.

He lands on his knees, gets to his feet, wipes his split lip on the back of his hand. "Fucking Jedi."

Galen lurches into action as I come at him. He swings a good punch, not so good that I can't avoid it by a mile. My knuckles surge up into his throat. Galen steps back, choking, and I whip my elbow up into his face. Flecks of blood from his nose paint my cheeks.

I bring my hands together, palms first, with his head in between, clapping his ears. Galen's fist whips up under my ribs and gasp and lose my balance as my towel tangles around my ankles. I fall back, but my force serves me well. I catch the floor with my palms and propel myself into a flip, landing in a crouch. I blow wet hair away from my face, but it just flops back.

"What are you," Galen pants.

I just scream. I wave my hand, the towel pounces at him and his feet leave the floor as it wraps around his neck. He struggles, kicks, beats and pulls at the rope as it tightens further and further. His gagging steadily lessons. It's only when he stops kicking that I fully realize what I'm doing. I've been riding on instincts, passions, emotions, everything that isn't my style, ever since he touched me.

Galen is immediately released, flopping the floor. I don't even look at him. I'm already storming out of the room. I don't want to see him. I don't want to feel the anger. I don't want to feel.

Two corridors later the first Rebel soldier I see flushes bright red and offers me their jacket.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter nine:

"Swing down from the left, and back across. Step the left. Parry high, parry low, parry mid right and stab out about a foot. Step back, parry high. Lead forward, press your attack, sweep it down in front of you. Good, he's stumbling. Now cut through his knees. Got him!" Thea sounds very pleased with herself, as I vanquish a foe that exists only in her imagination.

"Are you sure you're not just making this all up?" I ask.

"There are many forms of lightsaber combat," Thea scoffs.

"Yeah, you told me about seven main ones," I say, "Which one have I been doing?"

"Um…"

"Like I said."

"I do my own thing," the image of Thea bites her lip as she paces in the air above her holocron. "Well, judging by my excellent sense of time, we've got the chance to run you through a few more sets before we're joined by assorted Rebel youths."

We've taken over one of the small gymnasiums that decorate the _Kryat's_ floor plan. My force powers have been getting stronger day by day, which means I've been able to spend far more time levitating objects and far less time meditating (Thea insists that they are one in the same, or at least aspects of one greater truthful union, and I don't bother to disagree aloud).

Thea has explained a bit more to me about lightsabers, how they're made, how they're used. I still focused on training with blasters, knives, and grenades, as those were the weapons my enemies and my allies would primarily be using, but Thea had decided work a bit on my lightsaber form.

To this end, I'd been able to reserve private hours in the gym for me and my holocron, between groups of soldiers or open access to those with intent to exercise.

My dark workout clothing is damp with sweat. I wave my hand and my water bottle flies to my grip; I take a swig, resting my metal pipe on my shoulder. Hollow and about twenty-eight centimeters in length, I'd ordered the pipe myself, straight from engineering. Thea admitted that she couldn't feel it's weight, and that she couldn't really see anything all that well, but it seemed a perfect surrogate lightsaber to her.

I hoped to make my own lightsaber at some point; a real one. They seem to be very enjoyable weapons.

By my reckoning (because I'd be damned if I ever bothered to look at a calendar), it had been about two dozen days since my incidents with Galen and Vaynich. I hadn't seen either of them since. I'd met a few of Galen's old crew, Jayze I remembered from times long past. I promptly ignored them all. It seemed the easiest way to react.

I had the word of the best doctors in the rebellion that Vaynich would make a full recovery, but not a quick one. I'd managed to break his mental conditioning, programmed courtesy of the Galactic Empire, and now they had to give the old victor inside a chance to reemerge. Vaynich had been transferred to another, much smaller, ship (named _The Quorra_ or some such) where he spent his days taking vitamins, sleeping in and talking about his feelings. I felt sorry for any psychiatrist to cross his path.

President Coy glanced at my request for larger quarters and delegated me to the officer actually in charge of housing. The nervous little man took one look at me and practically tripped over himself in a scramble to get me approved and moved. The quarters were about the same as my previous ones, only larger so as to fit two beds. They suited Primith and I very nicely.

Primith had taken my advice about finding something to live for very seriously. She spent nearly every day in the medical bay, getting under foot and learning what she could. She studied medical texts on my datapad (which she'd basically taken over) every night. My mother's death had made a huge impression on her (things like that tended to on ordinary people) maybe she felt like she could have saved if she'd known a bit more first aid. She couldn't have, of course, but it was a healthy interest nonetheless (pardon the pun). It also kept her busy so I could train, study and practice in my room without unwanted spectators. Train I did, all day, every day.

Menissa had no more holos for me to star in. Now that my status was wholly established, and the war fully started, she told me she was dealing with other subjects. She still kept turning out new propaganda pieces using footage from my work in her studio before, along with images of me fighting stormtroopers that Edwin had recorded.

I ate lunch with Edwin every day and found playing with his emotions an important part of my training. Over a week I took him from a juvenile crush on me to a passionate love for a forbidden woman far above his station (or a different unachievable woman at least, though there had been plenty of ideas about her in his head before I took hold of them). He told me Menissa hadn't responded to the love note I'd helped him write for her.

Syra Antilles and I worked out together a couple of times. I played with her head a little too, but not enough to get her to do anything interesting. She talked so much that I had a tendency to get distracted by whatever mundane facet of her life was up for discussion.

I hadn't heard anything from Fenric since the message he'd left me (which I hadn't bothered to respond too). I'd talked briefly to Zanna over hologram. Black Sun was in the final stages of joining the Rebellion, partly because the war was turning in our favor with surprising speed. System after system was turning against the Empire in their own special way, everything from closing trade routes to starting all out riots in every city. People had had enough of taxes, and trade restrictions and watching their children killed as a spectator sport. Fear is a weapon, and a good one, but overstep your bounds and you start finding proactive fearful people with nothing to lose.

Zanna said that she'd be back soon, and Thea had voted that I celebrate by training longer and harder than usual.

Thea watches with a critical eye as I launch into a new set. It's always a little funny swinging at empty air, but I understand the principle and the importance. I just have to remember that in combat, when I'm hacking through human beings, there'll be a lot more resistance to cut through than the empty air can offer, all that meat and gristle. At least that's how it was with swords. I wasn't sure about lightsabers.

"How easy is it to cut through people with lightsabers?" I ask aloud.

"Taking another's life is always regrettable, and it weighs so heavily on the soul-"

"No I mean literally, how smoothly does the lightsaber cut."

"Really well," Thea says after a pause. "It just burns right through."

I whip my pipe up under an invisible opponent's ribs, elbow the imaginary man behind and kick him off his feet before taking his head off.

"Sometimes I wonder about you," Thea says. "You talk about all this dark stuff, but you sound so…sterile."

"Sterile? So I'm not pregnant while I'm talking about it?"

"That wasn't what I meant."

"Do you mean like clean?" I ask.

"Meh. Just…calm really. You're calm. Cold. Cold to all the waste and death and destruction. Not Jedi, definitely not, but not really Sith either. There's not the same kind of passion there."

"Hmm. That's nice," I separate an imaginary assailant from his hands. "I've been meaning to ask about that actually. You haven't told me much about the dark side."

"There's loads of history and case files," Thea says, "You can look at them in my database sometime. As for the dark side, it's just accessing the force through negative emotion, raw emotion, and primitive emotion. Hate, anger, fear, mild sarcasm, it's all a big ball of aggression that they keep pent up inside."

"And when they use the force?"

"They pour it all out. Usually with lots of lightning."

"So that's what it's like? Just letting it go?"

"So some have said," Thea explains. "Why are you asking me that anyway?"

"I was wondering a little bit about that," I say. "Are there really two types of the force?"

"There's only one force," says Thea. "That we know about, that is."

"And emotion doesn't exist," I'm not even fighting now, just swinging my pipe absentmindedly as I watch Thea pace in the air above the holocron.

"How doesn't it exist?" she asks.

"Well it's a thing," I clarify, "But it's inside people's heads. It's feeling, perspective, glasses to look through."

"And a whole lot of chemicals," says Thea.

"That too," I say, "But if there's only one force then that force is neither light nor dark. Not Jedi, not Sith. There're just people who feel different ways when they use it."

"The force is one big thing," says Thea, "But it is so very big of a thing that it can have many, many facets and faces. That said, I'm inclined to agree with you. It's the people that matter. Life just exists, our choices are how we build or destroy, and have a positive or negative effect on our environment. Oh, and behind you."

I stab my pipe back behind me without even looking.

"Don't worry," Thea says, "Nobody's perfect."

"Why do you mention that?"

"I figure you slipped up," Thea shrugs. "That line of questioning, your interest in descriptions of Sit behavior. It happens to everyone. Just don't let it happen again. Do no harm, that's the Jedi way."

"Do no harm unless slicing up people and things for great justice."

"It's not a perfect system," says Thea.

"Well I'm no Sith," I say. "Anger is stupid."

"And does that make you a Jedi?" Thea muses.

"I'm not really sure what I am anymore," I say.

"It seems like the galaxy doesn't really belong to Jedi and Sith these days," Thea admits. "You're a survivor. Maybe that's enough. I am too, or at least my holocron is. Together, after this war gets won, maybe we can start over. We could make our own Jedi temple, start teaching some kids."

"I've had my fill of children," I say.

"Oh, bad memories."

"Distracting memories," I say. "So…will you teach me how to shoot lighting?"

"That's Sith stuff."

"So? It's powerful. What if I need it?"

"Then you'll settle for telekinesis and speaking of telekinesis, let's switch gears and practice some of that. I want you juggling at least two more items than your record before our time runs out."

"We've only got another four minutes," I realize, checking the clock.

"Then I guess you'd better get busy."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter ten:

"Hold still."

"You're pulling too hard," I tell my sister. "Hair's not supposed to go like that."

"Nonsense," she scoffs, "I've seen pictures."

"You're worse than my Empire stylists."

"Really?"

"No."

I sit on my bed in my room, wringing my hands impatiently as Primith fiddles around with handfuls of my blonde hair.

"Are you sure you want to wear that?" she asks for the umpteenth time.

I glance down at my plain black top and black trousers with lots of pockets. "I was thinking of putting on shoes too," I admit.

Primith sighs. "You're hopeless. This is a very important meeting you have, all about strategy and warfare, but you're there to make an impression. You've got to look your best. You'll be talking to the biggest people around."

"I'm the biggest person around."

"Biggest bitch maybe," Primith says good-naturedly.

"Its fine," I concede, looking at my pile of hair in the mirror. "You're probably right. As long as you don't go anywhere near my eyebrows, you're good."

"I wasn't going to mention those," says Primith, "But while we're on the subject, I was thinking you really ought to shave your legs sometime soon-" She's interrupted by a chime at the door.

"I'm also due in the meeting chamber," I say, "Maybe they sent an escort?"

I move to the door and press a button. It slides open to reveal Edwin, holding a black clothing bag in his hands. "Hey there," he says (Edwin, not the bag).

Primith waves hello, joining me. "Nice to see you, Primith," Edwin nods at her.

"Hi, sweetie," she says. His brow furrows. Primith fancies Edwin a lovesick pet of mine. I've never tried to correct her.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"Kara can't come out and play," says Primith. "Jedi business."

"Right, Jedi business," says Edwin. "President Coy said… well actually Menissa said, because Coy told her…"

"You can skip ahead to the good part," I say.

"Be nice," Primith slaps my arm.

"The president wants you to dress the part for the meeting," Edwin says, "To that end she had Menissa pull some of your costume stuff, and she, Menissa not the President, had me run it over to you."

"Okay," I say, and accept the bag he puts into my hands.

"So…" says Edwin, "Do you need an escort after you get…uh, dressed. To your thing."

"I'll manage," I say. "Have a nice day," I close the door.

"He wants me," says Primith.

"He certainly wants something."

"I was kidding," says Primith.

"And I forgot to care."

"You're so nice."

"I'm not nice, I'm a Jedi."

"I'm glad I'm not a Jedi," says Primith, opening the black bag in my hand. "Those clothes look really uncomfortable."

I toss the armful of cloth and leathers onto my bed and stare at it, crossing my arms. "Hmm."

"Well?" Primith flops down beside them.

"Well, hmm," I say, tapping my lips with a finger.

"I'm not going to bother fixing your hair," she says, "You're so ungrateful."

"Thank you," I say.

"You should probably get changed."

"I probably should." I look at the clothes a moment more.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere, if that's what you're waiting for," Primith says.

I stick my tongue out at her, and I pull my shirt up over my head.

…

The clothes are a lot like the Jedi robes I'd worn before, but the colors were a bit darker, rich browns with some shiny black leather incorporated in the jerkin. They seemed a little more comfortable too, not as scratchy. Perhaps I was simply getting further in my training and could better cope with the clothes. I also got a dark brown cloak with a hood, which I promptly stuffed under my bed, didn't need that getting in the way.

When I arrive, the meeting seems to be in full swing. "Have I missed anything?" I ask.

"You've arrived exactly when I wanted you to," President Coy says coolly, and addresses her audience. "Gentlemen, ladies, I present Kara Evenstern, our chosen one." I get a smattering of glances and nods from the assembled adults, and I sit in the corner and try to figure out what I've missed.

Coy stands, it's obvious she'd been talking before I entered. Assembled in the room is Coy's chain of command. Generals and scientists, generally human males, most of them I recognize by sight. Menissa is the only one I recognize by name. There are several more alien individuals, governors and leaders from planets who'd joined with us, like Ryloth and Mon Calamari.

Most notable are the trio of richly dressed Falleen. Zanna nods at me respectfully, as she sits between a man and woman that for all intents and purposes appear to be her parents. They also happen to be the current leaders of Black Sun. The gang's all here.

It's a medium sized briefing room, with rings of seats proceeding at a slope away from a holo-projector in the center of the room. A map of part of the galaxy is projected upon it, with little green of blue fleets of ships indicating military positions.

"As I was saying," President Coy continues, "We've been fighting a good fight. The Empire has never felt so threatened since their conception, I would suggest, not even during the Galactic Civil War. Their rule is crumbling and we are turning the Galaxy against them. Yet, this is to be a long and bloody war. I would prefer if further loss of life could be avoided by bringing a decisive end to this conflict.

"We have fought hard," says Coy, "But sometimes we have fought to distract and inspire rather than simply to win."

"That explains the Battle of Tatooine," says Zanna's father.

"Hmm," is Coy's only response. "We have been planning for this day for years, we've had our top spies, our top scientists, and our top engineers all working toward giving us an upper hand. There's a technology used in days long passed, one the Empire so nobly decreed immoral and unwarranted. We've been able to refine and replicate its power.

"For generations there's been debate between the power of the force and the power of technology, which is most powerful and most worthy of use." She gestures to me, "You've all seen the footage of this one, Kara is like no one else alive. Yet when we bring up this age old dilemma of priorities I must reply, why not have both?"

Coy's long fingers play across the control system before her and the holographic map disappears, replaced by the image of a familiar young man. "Hello everyone, it's an honor to be here in, well, not in person," says Fenric.

"Is the test ready to proceed?" Coy enquires.

"Yes, ma'am," Fenric salutes.

"Begin the countdown," Coy orders, "And give us the live feed."

A gray planetoid floats in the air in the middle of the room; a large, rectangular ship approaches it. I recognize it as the _Organa_, a member of our fleet. But I've never seen the armor on its nose retract into itself.

"The greatest accomplishments of the previous Rebel Alliance," Coy monologues, "Consisted of destroying two Death Stars. In their honor, we have replicated the most impressive feature of those weapons of mass destruction. Before you is a planet devoid of life, a cracked and bitter little thing ravaged by fifty years of Imperial weapons testing."

After a count of five, a thick green superlaser jets down toward the sphere. It hits the center of the planet, drilling deep as a shockwave generates outward, ripping across the surface as the entire planet ruptures and then bursts outward in an explosion of rubble and molten rock. Within seconds, the planet is gone. Destroyed.

I sit in silence and watch Coy beam as a wave of applause washes over her.

"So," I raise my hand, and am mildly surprised as everyone turns to me respectfully. "Now that we've completed this test run I assume it's a very brief matter of time until the Empire knows just what weapon we have. Meanwhile, we want to use our element of surprise. So we'll be moving quickly?"

"Certainly," Coy nods.

"So…where are we going to hit?" I think I speak for everyone when I ask. My mind races. The Empire has so many prisons scattered about, which would be kind of a waste of time to destroy, and shipyards, which wouldn't be.

Coy smiles. "I hear Coruscant is lovely this time of year."


	11. Chapter 11

**Part Three:**

**The Assassin**

Chapter eleven:

"So this is kind of like the victor's lounge right now, isn't it?" Zanna muses.

"So you want to trade Games stories?" I ask, "Maybe open a bottle of wine?"

"Hell no," says Zanna. Then, after a pause: "To the first part. I wouldn't mind some wine…"

"That's about the size of it," I say, and slouch down to lay on my side on the bench.

Zanna and I are the only occupants of the same conference chamber I'd stood in to watch the superlaser test only a day or so previously. I'm not sure quite how long it's been, I only know that I haven't slept, but most of the people I know have. I wasn't tired, hit the gym. I didn't even assault anyone in the showers afterwards this time.

An image projects from the holo-emitter, a ghostly vision Rebel fleet as it now appears from the viewpoint of the _Kryat's_ nose. The live feed fills the room, as ships merge and shift into formation. Not long now.

It has all been leading up to this. Everything I'd done, my family, the games, all a prelude to this war on a grander scale. Would it have all happened without me? Most likely, but not in exactly the same way. Goes to show that one little girl from the slums really can make a difference.

When she's a fucking Jedi.

I watch the Black Sun flagship shift a little to the left, pointing parallel to the _Krayt. _"Aren't you supposed to be over there?" I ask Zanna. "Do your parents want to have their little victor at their side to watch the triumph of the Rebellion?"

"I'm sure the Rebellion and I are the farthest things from their mind."

"You'd just rather stay with me," I'm trying my hand at banter (Thea says that many Jedi value a dry sense of humor) but I don't feel like I'm having much luck.

"Let's look at it this way," says Zanna, "Between you and my parents; I'd rather be with you eight out of ten times."

"Four out of five."

"That's not what I said."

"Hmm," I'm not sure what else to say on the subject.

"Wasn't Edwin going to join us?" Zanna asks.

"He was," I say, "But now he's helping Menissa. She's getting some last minute propaganda together, I guess."

"That's just fine," Zanna says, "Better probably. Still, he's missing out. This will be a great view of the battle."

"Yeah," I gaze at the holo-emitter. "Now I'm seeing how the other half lives." I wonder if the Force Games had been this dull to watch. Then again, I thought most holos were dull.

"Cheers," Zanna pulls a ration bar from her pocket. "You want any?"

I shake my head as the door hisses open. "Hello ladies," says Fenric, grinning his way into the room with open arms.

"Hey you," Zanna moves to him and claps him congenially on the shoulder.

"Did you lovely victors see my little announcer job?" Fenric asks, "I couldn't tell, I only saw Coy over the emitter thing, so-"

"Saw it," says Zanna more seriously. "Very powerful, very intimidating. Not sure WMD is the way to go, I guess. I thought innocent collateral damage was the Empire's shtick. But then again I'm not the one they're letting give the order or making push the button."

"How about you Kara," Fenric nods to me.

I shrug. "Me? I just want to own one."

"Aren't you supposed to be fighting?" Zanna asks, "Or preparing to fight. Being in the army and all."

"They're fine with me here," says Fenric. "There's not going to be so much fighting really."

He was right, at least according to what I'd heard. The plan I'd been told was a simple one. I'm sure it had complexities, but they hadn't told me those parts. We were going to drop out of hyperspace surrounding Coruscant, fire the _Organa _superlaser, blow up the planet, and either beat it out of there or accept the surrender of any Imperial ships in the vicinity, depending on how things went.

It wasn't a bad plan. Probably about the one I'd come up with.

"Attention. your attention please," the voice is familiar, delivered over intercom. Fenric sits, and accepts half of Zanna's ration bar.

"Attention, your attention please," she's speaking to everyone, everywhere in the fleet, broadcasting live. It's not some private show. "I am President Coy of the New Galactic Alliance. Some have called us terrorists, insurgents, villains. But is it evil to rebel against evil?"

"I always thought evil was just a matter of personal preference," I mutter.

Fenric laughs and Zanna tells me to "Shut up. She's just getting started."

"Are we to sit quietly and wait for death to come to us, to wait to find peace and security in some undiscovered country as we fade from this galaxy, as we allow our friends and our families and our homes to be ripped and raped to pieces by the white-armored emissaries of a single twisted old man? Will we bow to his ideals, dance on his strings?

"No! We will be the change; we will seize today and secure the future. We will choose peace, and create a galaxy where we support our leaders not because we are afraid of them, but because we agree with them.

"But that's for tomorrow. Today we will remember those we have lost, remember what the Empire has done to us and we will do our damnedest to strike them down. We're ending the Empire today. Right now. By any means necessary. You have taken up arms; you have fingers on your triggers. You know what you are about to do, you know what you were meant to do your entire life, and our children and our children's children will look back on this day with pride. Today we fight. May the force be with you all, and may the odds be ever in our favor."

I watch the hologram as ships began to disappear, accelerating into hyperspace with a flare of their engines.

"What a lot of hot air," I whisper, as the _Kryat's_ image of the fleet morphs into the swirls and patterns of hyperspace travel. We're on our way.

"I thought it was nice enough," Fenric says. "Something for the kids to memorize."

"You have kids Fenric?" Zanna glances at him.

"Nah," he shakes his head. "But one day. You know."

"I guess I never really think about that kind of thing," Zanna admits. "You, Kara?"

"Kids are like apprentices, I guess," I say. I never really thought about them either, other than when popping the contraceptive of the day. "As in, I don't think I'm that kind of Jedi."

"This'll be good," Fenric points, as the hyperspace field dissipates and we emerge above the gleaming orb of the Imperial Capital. The fleet is arriving, ship by ship, and space is already full of wreckage. Fighter ships swarm from the larger Rebel ships, engaging craft both governmental and domestic and blowing them out of the sky.

I watch the thousands of interconnecting dogfights spin past, as an orbital security station is blasted to dust amidst them. For a moment, maybe two, it really looks like we've taken them by surprise, like we're winning. Then I bounce in my seat as a detonation rocks the _Krayt_.

"Aw, shit," says Zanna, pointing, as Star Destroyer after Star Destroyer clears a curvature of the planet and powers towards the rebel fleet. They've already opened fire. A wave of TIE fighters rushes from their hulls to engage the Rebel fleet, and our smaller craft zip to and fro between the larger ships. There are so many energy bolts flying around that my eyes start to feel strained. Too many flashing lights. I resist the urge to blink.

"There we go," says Fenric and I spy the _Organa _through the fray. It's aimed right for the planet, superlaser primed and ready to go. The smaller Rebel ships take formation around the _Organa, _defending it from enemy fire. I see a green glow form within the _Organa_'s bow-

Which then sputters and goes out.

Flames burst and fade against the black vacuum as Rebel ships careen into nothingness. The Star Destroyers are concentrating their fire. I watch one of the burst to pieces. Then another. But it's too little too late. Explosions wrack the length and breadth of the _Organa_, finally tearing it open from the inside. Our greatest weapon becomes nothing but another expanding wave of wreckage.

Believe you me; we had plenty of wreckage already.

With the _Organa_ gone the Rebel ships scatter, then regroup focusing on the incoming wave of TIE fighters. Soon the swarm of fighters ahead of us becomes so thick I can barely see the planet itself. It's a wonder only most of the fighters run into each other.

"Seriously" Zanna breaths, "That? Really?"

A large explosion rocks the _Krayt_, throwing her into Fenric's lap. The holoemitter cuts out after a flaming TIE fighter filled our POV. We've lost the feed. That's not all we seemed to have lost.

"So why are we not jumping back into hyperspace," I ask. I was almost as disappointed as the next fellow, but that was no excuse for living in the past few minutes.

"No idea, but I intend to find out," says Fenric and makes for the door. Zanna and I follow quickly in his wake. The _Krayt _shakes from stem to stern. Rebels and their droids rush about frantically as our boots stomp through the hallways.

A Rodian soldier comes around the corner and Fenric catches him by the arm. "What's going on?"

"War!" The Rodian exclaims, and pulls away roughly before he seems to recognize us. "What are you guys doing? You should be fighting!"

"Why aren't we jumping to Hyperspace?" I ask.

"Can't," he says, "Some kind of jamming field projected from the planet."

"It's a trap," Zanna muses.

"I've got to get to my post," The Rodian pulls away.

"Can we disable the jamming field?" Fenric calls.

"What the hell do you think we've been trying to do?" the Rodian is around the corner and gone.

Two corridors and a briefing room later, we find a dumpy human scientist frantically working at a computer terminal. "Hey," I get her attention.

"Oh," she jumps, and then reaches out to touch my arm, almost as if she's afraid I'm just a hallucination. "Thank goodness you're still with us."

"What happened to the _Organa_?" Zanna asks.

"Other than blowing up," Fenric clarifies.

"It didn't fire," The scientist explains. "Its system got overloaded by some kind of…I don't know. Weaponized transmission signal thing. Still working on it."

Or not. The computer terminal explodes in a shower of sparks, and the scientist is thrown on her back, where she groans, sluggishly wiping blood from her forehead.

We've got no time for her. Weaponized transmission. Overloaded system. Last thing we'd expect. Last minute messages. "I think I know what's happening…" I say.

"Which means?" Zanna glances at me.

"I have a bad feeling about this," I bite my lip. "Come on." If I'm right I could use the backup. If I'm wrong I could use it too.

…

The recording studio hall is empty, save for a pair of guards standing outside one particular door. We round the corner cautiously. "The bulk of the broadcasting equipment is in there," I point.

"How do you know that?" Fenric asks.

"I was here one time and Edwin pointed out that door and said most of the recording equipment is in there."

"Ah," Fenric nods.

"Let's see what happens," Zanna just strides right toward the pair of guards. Fenric and I hurry after her.

"Sorry ma'am," says the taller and broader of the two guards. Both are human males. "I'm not allowed to let anyone past."

"Seriously?" I say. "Even us?"

"Yes…" he sounds a bit nervous. "Orders from the top."

"Is Menissa really the top?" I ask.  
"Uh, she's up there."

The shorter guard (he's barely older than me, really) shuffles away from the door. "I'm not going to argue much, not with you guys."

"Well I'm going to do my job," the other guard huffs.

He puts his hand on the butt of his blaster, and Fenric catches his wrist. "Do you really want to do that?"

"We are authorized to go past," I butt in, waggling my fingers in front of his face.

"You are authorized to go past," he shrugs after a pause.

"Thanks very much," Zanna says as the door slides open.

"Neat trick," says Fenric.

I'm just really glad it had worked. I'd generally gotten good at messing people's emotions around, but getting them to do specific things is still a huge challenge. I'm more of a blunt instrument.

The room beyond is smaller than I'd anticipated, and filled with massive computer banks, complex access ports and large monitors, most of which displayed the battle outside.

"This smells suspicious," Zanna crouches, tapping a red stain on the floor.

There's more blood, a few streaks dotting a nearby screen. We find him in the alcove between computer banks.

Edwin is slumped against the wall, with a jagged rip torn through his face. His clothes stained crimson, the hilt of a knife protruding from his chest. Something crunches beneath my boots, just a few of his detached fingers. I kick them away. He's very dead.

I hear a hint of water running, and move to a nearby door. It opens to reveal a small attached refresher unit. Menissa stands wringing her hands in the sink, the water's tinted red when it drains away.

"Oh," says Menissa. "This isn't nearly as bad as it looks."

"You killed Edwin!" Zanna accuses.

"Did I? It's kind of a blur. Threw himself on me. He forced my hand."

"He tried to stop you from sabotaging the _Organa_," Fenric says. "Traitor," he adds for good measure.

"Nah," Menissa shrugged. "I'm the only one in this room who isn't a traitor."

Suddenly, the _Krayt_ shakes, this time far more violently than before. I lose my balance, roll against the floor to push myself up.

Menissa is already sprinting toward the door. I charge to tackle. I underestimate her strength, and she manages to twist away out of my grip. I knock into one of the computer stations, banging my elbow at just the right angle to send shivers down my arm.

Fenric grabs her in a headlock from behind, lifting her feet from the floor. Menissa's only response is to crunch down really hard on something.

"No," Zanna moves forward, as Menissa's mouth fills with yellow foam. As she gags and chokes, Menissa manages to spit. Zanna cries out in pain and falls back as drops of acid fleck her face.

Fenric tosses Menissa aside, she's already dead. The poison pellet has melted her jaw away.

Zanna winces, small burns flecking the right side of her face.

"Are you okay?" Fenric is concerned for her.

"I will be," she says, "Let's just make sure and grab some bacta pretty soon. I don't want this to scar."

Fenric offers Zanna his arm, but she refuses, claiming she can support her injured self just fine, thank you. The two guards are still waiting for us out in the hall, along with a blaring incessant alarm.

"Wait a second," the guard I'd mind-tricked mumbles drowsily. "Weren't you supposed to go in there?"

"What's going on in there? Is anything wrong?" the alert guard asks.

"Everyone inside is dead," says Zanna.

"And the good news is?"

"Actually," I say, "That is the good news."

With a horrendous shriek of tearing metal, a thick armored limb, half as wide as I was tall, shears through the hallway a few yards down from us.

"What the hell?" Fenric speaks for us all.

The foggy-minded guard screams on everyone's behalf as a small four-legged droid drops down on his head, and rams its sharp little legs right through its neck, spattering the wall with his blood. It's not alone. They're coming from the new hole.

Another droid pounces right at me. I manage to catch in in the air with the force. It hovers before me, straining to reach me, its legs inches from my nose.

Fenric catches his droid with his bare hands, and slams it into the wall. A fourth emerges from the tear in the hallway and scuttles at Zanna, who hops and dodges out of the way. I smash my droid down on top of hers with the force, crushing them both.

A blaster shot rings out, as the living guard destroys the droid that just destroyed his comrade's head. Fenric twists and throws his droid aside, allowing the Rebel soldier to finish it off as well.

With no more little droids rushing to attack us, we cluster around the rip torn through the hallway. The gash extends to levels below and beneath us, the edges glimmering, almost molten. Showers of sparks illuminate fire after fire in decks above and below. There's no sign of the limb that did the damage, though I do glimpse a few more of the small droids scuttling about, fleeing down corridors and maintenance shafts.

"I've seen this before," says Zanna grimly. "Or at least I've heard stories."

"What is it?" I see no time for dramatic. Our circumstances are dramatic enough already.

"It's a droid," says Zanna. "They call it the Terror Walker."

"I can understand why," says Fenric.

"They're huge," says Zanna, "Heavily armored, designed to tear through any obstacle in their way. My parents lost a fine Black Sun Vigo to one of their kind a year or so ago. They're especially devastating when deployed in space. It'll be burrowing toward the engine room right now. When it gets there…the ship is lost for all intents and purposes."

"Sounds to me like it's time to get off this ship," I say.

"If you don't mind," we all turn to see the surviving Rebel guard wave nervously, "I'd like to tag along with you guys."

…

We see a lot of scared people, a lot of flashing lights, and even a fair bit of damage on our way to the hanger. At least we don't run into the Terror Walker. Zanna has given us the impression that with on off those things on board, all of us have only a few minutes before we're floating out in space. I wonder if she's overestimating things a bit (the _Krayt is_ a very formidable ship) but I've got no inclination to stick around and see.

The Rebel soldier claims his name is Stocking. I have no good reason to disbelieve him. He doesn't give a first name, but he does admit that this is the first real combat he's seen. He only made it into the Rebellion a short time ago, after jumping ship from a transport bound to an Imperial military academy. Seems like he just wanted to be on what was starting to look like the winning side. I can respect that.

We emerge into the hanger. I've never seen it this empty. Empty of ships that is, hardly any vessels remain. There are Rebels all over the place though, a frantic communication officer nearly runs into me, shrieking about how all their systems have crashed. Zanna grabs her, tries to calm her down, escorting her back to her station.

Unfortunately, the most promising ship happens to be little more than a bonfire, tucked neatly in the corner of the hanger. I watch a few maintenance droids help the emergency systems to extinguish the flame with some foamy concoction. Meanwhile, a crew of medics tends to a squad of wounded soldiers. Some of their burns look downright mortal. I recognize Galen as one of the patients. His burns are far from severe. The medic patting a bacta patch onto his arm is none other than my sister Primith. She nods my way, and intently goes back to her work.

"Hey, aren't you guys supposed to be fighting?" Doggs strides towards us. His eyebrows look a little singed.

"We're getting around to it," I say.

"I could say the same about you," says Fenric (hopefully in response to Doggs, not me).

"Something penetrated our shields," says Doggs "Blew up this particular shuttle right as we we're getting into it. Took about my entire team out action. By the time I was on my feet, there weren't any more transports to command."

Zanna catches up with us. "External comms are still down, I've got them to signal a ship-wide evacuation," she says.

"But things were going so well," Doggs sighs.

"We've got a bit of a pest problem, sir," Stocking explains.

"A really big one," says Zanna. "Headed for the engines."

"We've got to take out that hyperspace jammer," Fenric says. "And with three victors on the case I've got a feeling we just might manage it."

"Getting off this ship is all I'm really interested in just this second," says Zanna.

I had been hoping for a ship with guns, but an escape pod just might be the best I could muster. I was about to start making my way toward one when a single, battered, troop transport swoops in for a landing.

Syra Antilles pokes her little head out the hatchway, and her eyes light up when she sees me. "T'sup, bitches," she says brightly. "And, uh, sir," she flushes when recognizing Doggs.

"What the hell are you doing?" Doggs shouts.

"Well, I dropped off my troops down on the planet, so I figured I'd come back for a refill."

"Wait, you actually made it down there?" Doggs is astonished.

"Yeah, I managed to coast along, hidden by some wreckage from one of the Star Destroyers we took out," Syra explains.

"Well," I shoulder past her and into the ship. "You've just got your next passengers."

Syra looks a little surprised as Fenric, Zanna, Stocking, and Doggs climb aboard behind me. "I…uh…I...yeah, okay. I'll be in the cockpit. We lift off in about a minute."

Just before the hatch closes, two more Rebels slip inside the doors. "Primith," I say her name in surprise.

"I figure that with the three of you victors on one ship, someone, somewhere, is about to need a medic," Primith says.

"Weren't you guys treating my squad?" Doggs asks.  
"Yep, they're being loaded into escape pods," Primith says. "Don't worry, I'm competent, I brought my patient along. He's doing pretty okay. Fit for combat and all that."

"Guess I'm just along for the ride," says Galen.

"You're not the only one," says Stocking.

"Where we're headed, an extra blaster arm wouldn't go amiss," says Fenric, but Galen ignores him as he looks deeply into my eyes.

"I'll be in the front," I say, and hurry after Syra as the transport lifts off the hanger floor.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter twelve:

The space battle unfolding above Coruscant has only gotten more chaotic. That might partly just be since I'm now seeing it up close and personal.

"You might want to take a sit," Syra says. "This'll probably get rough. I could use a second pair of eyes."

I flop back in the copilot's seat and crane my neck to get a look at the _Krayt._ The Rebel flagship seems as though it's not long for this world. Gaping holes and craters spew vapor and wreckage and the whole ship looks like it's slowly tilting toward the planet.

A row of escape pods eject from the _Kryat_'s side. A formation of Imperial drones swoops in and blows nearly every one to bits.

Fortunately, it seems most of the other Rebels are putting up a better fight. Fighter craft spin and careen all around us, a kaleidoscope of metal and energy blasts. It's a wonder our shuttle only takes a couple hits as Syra heads down toward the planet. Somewhere above us, a Star Destroyer gets totaled, impaled by multiple Rebel Ion cannon blasts. It splits into several massive pieces that go spinning out through the battle, wiping out every ship in their path. One shard even slams into a Rebel medical ship, and both disappear in the resultant explosion.

"So we're headed to the planet right?" Syra asks.

"Uh. Yes," I say.

"Good, we can try to take out the hyperspace jammer."

"I…yes," I say. Running and hiding had been foremost on my mind, but getting Hyperspace access back would be conducive to that in the long run. "That's what Fenric was talking about at least."

As we whip towards a particularly thick pack of combatants, Syra opens up with the laser cannons. Multiple TIEs disappear in head-on explosions or careen away, engines damaged, into whatever or whoever is nearby.

The ship rocks as enemy fighters turn their attention to us. Something smells like burning somewhere behind me, and I hear Doggs shouting about the location of a fire extinguisher.

Syra bites her lip in concentration. "Sorry 'bout that."

"I'm used to arriving on Coruscant in flames," I say. "Oh! The turrets!"

I grab the seat restraints as Syra does a barrel row, dropping us out of the line of fire from the turrets along the port side of a nearby Star Destroyer. Its emerald energy blasts instead rip through the TIEs pursuing us. Unfortunately, another Star Destroyer closes in and opens fire from above. Syra comes in low over the first Destroyer, and friendly fire shreds its armor plating.

Three Rebel fighters zip right past over our heads and unload their torpedoes into the bridge of the Star Destroyer. Syra zooms away as the battleship begins to drift to the side, free of its command station.

The Star Destroyer above us doesn't let up, and dozens of Rebel fighters go tailspinning away under its bombardment. The _Krayt _cuts through the battle ahead of us, plunging toward the planet, its thrusters have overloaded, torn themselves open. It's a lost ship if I've ever seen one.

Syra brings us in close to the _Krayt_, glancing back at the Star Destroyer. "Oh no," I realize what she's thinking, "Are you serious?"

"Trust me," she says. "It's gonna be fun."

Syra targets a single TIE bomber far above us, and fires, taking out the TIEs right wing. The bomber spins away and smashes right into the _Krayt._ Its payload detonates in a massive blast, propelling the rear of the _Krayt_ over and down toward the planet. The _Krayt_ slams into the Star Destroyer almost like a gigantic mallet, smashing both ships into some very large fragments. Flames emerge the surface of the gigantic metal shards as they begin to enter Coruscant's atmosphere.

"That's our ride," Syra dives down after them. The same heat whips at our exterior as the troop transport joins the swarm of metal fragments. Fighters and bodies spin past as we careen toward Coruscant.

The megacity comes into view below, and becomes nothing more than more flames and ruins as the metal missiles surrounding us smash into it. We're buffeted left and right, up and down, as the whole planet seems to explode around us.

Finally the chaos subsides, and Syra brings us in for a gentle landing amidst a fresh wasteland of broken ships, buildings, and bodies. We've managed to level at least the first few layers of several blocks.

I glance at Syra, and shake my head in wonder. I'm amazed that actually worked. "That was magnificent."

"Superlasers are a thing," says Syra knowingly, "But the truest weapon of mass destruction the human brain. I have one of those."

With an almighty roar, the Terror Walker bursts from the pile of hull plating ahead of us, and rams its big metal leg right through the front of our ship. Syra might've spoken too soon about having a brain, as bits and pieces of her skin and bone and blood,] splatter across me.

Before the Walker can swipe across, I'm out of my seat and diving into the back of the ship. The Walker just crunches the area where I was sitting instead, spreading more of what used to be Syra all over the place. I pluck something that might be an eyeball out of my hair and toss it over my shoulder. It doesn't bear thinking about. I can't let myself think about it. I could feel her. I _felt_ her life swiped away, flowing into the universe, into everything. I couldn't think about that now, couldn't let myself sense it. too busy not dying.

I almost lose my footing as I leap from the ship and the field of shattered metal and broken glass shifts beneath me. Fortunately, my boots are thick. Also fortunate, the rest of the company has managed to exit the ship ahead of me. Just in time too, the Terror Walker lifts the ship and crushes it into a ball that it hurls at me. Only with a little help from the force am I able to leap far enough out of the way to avoid being crushed.

"Kara," Zanna shouts as I reach the others, who are spread out in a hapless sort of formation. She throws a small blaster rifle into the air. Looks as though my companions had managed to raid the weapons locker before our ship was crushed, everyone has blasters. Now so do I, as I grab the gun, spin and open fire along with everyone else.

It's really underwhelming. The Terror Droid is steaming and dented, but the damage is only from reentry. Our blaster fire just pings of its exoskeleton. Retreating as the droid strides toward us, I try to aim toward its joints and its optical relay. No luck.

I notice Fenric has draped a grenade belt over his shoulders. He pulls a grenade off and hurls it. It bursts right in front of the walker, enveloping its front legs, but the armor is too strong. No damage. Maybe the head on approach wasn't the best. The only issue was that is I was pretty sure this thing could and would outrun each and every one of us.

"Hey, sister," Primith shouts at me, just a bit hysterical. "Do a Jedi thing!"

"Fine," I give in. I grab a metal pipe from the ground and hurl it with all my force-enhanced strength, massaging the air to guide it just a little. The pipe pokes right in between the joints of the droid's right leg. A few sparks of electricity run up and down the pipe before the Walker manages to loosen it.

Remembering the TIE fighter on Tatooine, I spread my arms, plant my feet. Try to hold back the Walker. Keep it in place. I feel the force around it, the mechanisms inside it. I take hold and begin to push. Just as some kind of emitter on the thing's underbelly begins to glow.

I hurl myself to the side as an energy blast scorches a deep furrow in the ground right where I'd been.

The emitter begins to glow again, but the droid doesn't fire yet. Seems it takes a moment to charge.

Instead the droid pounces, right on top of Galen. Galen manages to dodge away, and disappear into what's left of a nearby building. The droid is about to smash the roof down on top of him, till Zanna and Stocking start shouting, shooting it intently in the back.

The Walker turns and fires, its energy blast slicing into the base of the remainder of a nearby building. Foundations shorn away, the huge metal ruin collapses, hiding Zanna and Stocking beneath it.

The Terror Walker turns on me next. I run like hell.

I glimpse Primith taking cover beneath a wrecked speeder. The droid runs right past her. It has eyes only for me. Or optic circuits. Whatever.

Moving towards some slightly less flattened buildings, I turn down an alleyway. Walls rise up on both sides. Doggs is running behind me, breathing hard. He's a good runner, he's just no Jedi.

Fenric clambers over the top of one of the walls above and jumps down in front of us. The walker sticks its arm down the alleyway after us and Fenric throws a grenade over our heads. No effect, other than pelting Doggs with shrapnel. As the Walker begins to tear into the buildings on either side, forging its own path toward us, I reach Fenric, and dive past him into the building.

It's so broken up inside I can't really tell what the building was. It's pretty empty, and there's lots of glass and stone. Gallery maybe. The two men are hot on my heels as the building quakes around us. Metal and masonry collapse before us in a shower of sparks, blocking the exit.

"Stand back," Fenric throws a grenade. The explosion causes the building to cave in even more, the floor shifting away beneath our feet. I find myself falling in a shower of rubble, landing a floor below, lucky to only have another dozen scrapes and bruises. Doggs gives me a hand up, swearing while he does it. We're in some kind of maintenance tunnel.

"Sorry," Fenric calls from above. He managed not to catch our ride to the level below

"Just run," I shout at him. Doggs and I certainly do, as a metal arm smashes through the ceiling and starts rooting around for us.

Droid behind us, path ahead of us, and the floor opens in a chasm to deeper darker parts unknown. I take a running leap, thrust myself forward with the force, and clear the gap. I reach back and catch Doggs by the arm, yank him to safety.

We're only a few more yards down the tunnel when I hear the Terror Walker's beam detonate above us. The tunnel shakes, and Doggs and I barrel down separate passages as it forks and slopes upward. Damn, I didn't want be out in open air again.

Though the notion sounds more appealing, as a miniature Terror Walker lands on my back. I go down, slamming into the floor, biting my tongue. I wrench the droid off, hurl it away, and kick another. I fire, shooting down several of the droids swarming me, till one rips my gun in half. Light streams from a cranny above. I punch and kick and wave my hands through the force, finally clearing my path enough to jump, push, and clamber my way away from the swarm.

I emerge to just the sort of wreckage I'd left behind, as the Terror Walker rips nearby buildings apart looking for me. I run Zanna finds me first, she's just ahead. Blood stains her scalp.

"Look out!" she yelps, firing past me. I dive away, allowing her to shoot down the droids behind me. If only the Walker itself were so easy. Zanna and I clamber over a rise and barely avoid being fried.

"Hey, you! Bastard!" Doggs shouts. He's emerged a building front to fire at the metal beast. "Over here!"

The Walker complies, stalking towards him. Doggs waits till the last second before ducking back inside the building, as the energy weapon glows-

And Fenric dives from the roof of the building.

The Terror Walker swings an arm to catch the falling victor, but Fenric lands on it like a gymnast and leaps from the arm towards the droid's underbelly, grenade belt wrapped around his arms. Grenades, energy weapon and Fenric all meet I am momentarily blinded by the resulting blast. I feel the wave of heat on my face.

When I blink my sight back all that remains of the droid is four smoking legs sticking right up in the air. That's more than can be said for Fenric.

"Oh my…" is all Zanna can choke out.

"I wish Edwin had been filming that," I say, and Zanna turns to me aghast. Oh yeah, Edwin. All cut up. I bite my lip. "Too soon?"


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter thirteen:

As my adrenaline saps away I start to feel pretty exhausted.

Fenric is gone, saved us from the Terror Walker. Time to evaluate how many game pieces I still have on this board.

Primith peeps out from a pile of wreckage and waves me over. I walk to her, Zanna in tow.

"Glad you're alright," Primith says once I get close. "You two could use this." She tosses a bacta packet to me. I snatch it out of the air.

"Aren't you the medic?" I ask.

"Yeah, and I've got bigger stuff to deal with," Primith says, "Since somebody didn't grab the med kit from our ship, all I've got are the painkillers and bandages in my pockets."

Her latest patient sits propped against a piece of metal plating. Stocking has a grimly determined air about him, and a sling around his neck supporting a limp right arm. The sling is made mostly out of Primith's shirt. Seeing her working in her tank top, I'm surprised to see how lean and toned she looks. She's not a little girl anymore. Not that she's all grown up. Some freaky in-between thing. We've got that in common.

Doggs catches up, and waits for Zanna to finish with the bacta before he can address his own fresh scrapes and bruises. "Nice shooting everyone."

"Did you and Fenric plan that move out?" Zanna asks.

"He told me what to do," says Doggs, "Said he had a plan, but I had no idea what he was going to pull."

"Well…he won," I barely stop myself from saying 'better him than me'.

"We going after the hyperspace jammer next?" Stocking asks. "I can still fire a blaster, if anyone's wondering."

"First things first; we've just got to get out of here before the Imperial military and emergency services shut the place down," I say.

"So there's less actually getting things done, and more running from place to place?" Primith asks.

"Classic Force Games," says Zanna.

"This isn't a game," Doggs says.

"Neither were those," says Zanna.

"So is this everyone?" Galen joins us.

"Some help you were," Zanna blows him off.

"Maybe, maybe not," says Galen.

"Saving yourself for the bigger battles?" Primith asks.

"I'm not sure there are going to be any bigger fights than this one," Stocking mumbles.

"Sure, yeah, whatever," says Galen. "Just thought you might all appreciate that I found us a ride."

…

Primith suggests a moment of silence for Fenric and Syra, and Doggs agrees as long as it takes place at a later time. For now, even a moment of memorandum would slow us down and put our lives in even further jeopardy. Smart man. Their deaths were regrettable, and more deaths would be even more regrettable.

Our new ride is a bit of a hot rod. Sure, it's a little beat up now, what with all the buildings and space ship components flying all over the place, but it's still a sleek, slick speeder, the kind Galen used to drool over on the holonet. When we didn't have anything to smoke (or even when we did) we'd while away hour after hour talking about which ones looked the nicest or would be the easiest to steal. The old days. I only missed them when I was really tired.

It's a dark red convertible, with barely enough room for us all. Galen leaps over the door into the driver's seat and hits the ignition. The engine starts with a purr and he revs it up into a series of roars. I see a bunch of wires hanging out from the dashboard. A classic hotwiring job.

"Nice work," says Doggs, "But I'm driving."

"Aw, man," Galen slides over, the rest of us climb in. Zanna sits in the front beside Galen and I take the rear with Primith and Stocking. We all have our blasters in our laps as we pull into the air.

Not a moment too soon: Doggs pulls away from the crash zone just a series of emergency vehicles arrive. He pulls us in close to one of the buildings, and the authorities don't seem to pay us any mind.

I'm curious as to why their response time lagged so much, but as Doggs joins the frantic current of airborne commuters I think I can see why.

The city is afire.

Not all of it, but there are flames all over. Where there aren't flames there are craters and where there aren't craters there are burned out shells where buildings used to be. Ships and speeders do battle in the air above us, there are a few rebel craft fighting the Imperials, but mostly unidentified, unlabeled ships doing battle with the authorities. Civilians. They're not alone. On every bridge and plaza, I see protestors, looters and people being arrested. I think of Ryloth. This is what the mob I'd seen on Ryloth wish they could've been. The Empire has a fight on their hands, and it's not just because of the Rebel Alliance up in the sky.

We come to shuddering halt along with hundreds of other speeders, locked in a traffic jam. I peer ahead intently. I see a glimmer of force fields stretching between two buildings. There are speeders, hovercrafts and ships, and several white helmets to be seen, as troopers catalog and scan speeder after speeder. Multiple probe droids whir through the air around the blockade.

"They've set up a roadblock," says Zanna.

"Looks like they're scanning for Rebels," I say.

"Rebels like us," Doggs says grimly.

"That was really helpful, Doggs," I say.

"No less helpful than what you just said," Stocking points out.

"Who told you could talk to the Chosen One that way," Primith gives him her best offended face.

"I…" Stocking begins, "Well…all of the rest of you do, I figured I could…sorry."

"Nah, I'm just kidding," Primith grins and pats him on the shoulder. "You can give her all the crap you want."

"So," Zanna turns to me, "Can you do that same thing you did back on the ship with the guards. Weave a little Jedi magic."

"There are a lot more guards," Stocking squints at the blockade.

"It's the droids that I'm worried about," I admit. "I don't think I can do it."

"Not so powerful?" Galen asks.

"Guess so," I don't take the bait. "I don't want to risk it, that is."

"That's good enough for me," says Doggs, and the speeder drifts downwards. We shift through a series of lanes and lines with inches to spare Till Doggs pulls down into an alleyway, a narrow passage between buildings. I'm waiting for Imperials to follow right behind us, sirens-blaring, but there's no sign of pursuit.

"Now we just have to find another route to get where we're going," says Doggs.

"Now that you mention it, where exactly are we going?" Zanna asks.

Doggs turns a corner and a wide balcony full of Stormtroopers looks up at us.

"Oops," Doggs gulps, and shifts the speeder into reverse. We duck down in our seats; the troops are quick to open fire. Blasterfire pings, denting and scorching the hood. Zanna and Galen cover their eyes as the windshield shatters, showering them with broken glass.

I lean up out of my seat; arm outstretched, and squeeze my blaster's trigger. At least two stormtroopers crumple as I shoot them down. I see one of the troopers shouldering a heavy repeating blaster-cannon, the kind you can barely carry-

And we're around the corner, just as its powerful discharge rips up the building's sheer surface before our eyes.

Doggs takes us down several stories as we catch our breath. Till another blaster bolt tears through the seating to my left. More follow, as Doggs takes evasive maneuvers. A pair of stormtroopers descending on jetpacks empty their blasters in our general direction. As his passengers return fire, Doggs takes us down a passageway so narrow that the edges of our speeder raise sparks against the walls around us. Unfortunately, this does nothing to dissuade our more maneuverable pursuers.

Reaching out the force, I manage to catch on of our pursuers in midair, slowing him enough to allow Zanna to shoot him dead. As the body and its jetpack slam into a wall, resulting in a geyser of flame, we emerge over a plaza, sort of a deserted strip mall.

Zanna manages to nail the other trooper too, but only by shooting down his jetpack. As the jetpack spirals away with a trail of black smoke, the stormtrooper ejects and soars through the air, putting several blaster bolts through the dashboard of the speeder. Doggs swears as our ride stalls, jumps and sputters.

The stormtrooper lands in the back seat, ramming Stocking against the door, pressing his boots against the injured soldier. The trooper fires at Zanna, who ducks down out of the way, and I grab his arm and twist, forcing the gun out of his grip. As Primith beats at the trooper with the butt of her gun, he backhands her and she rolls away, mouth bloody. With Primith out of the way, Galen manages to shoot the Stormtrooper point blank through the head. We toss the body from the speeder even as our irreparably damaged transport hits the floor of the plaza with a clunk and a scrape.

Luckily, the stolen speeder died a slow, leisurely death rather than a hard and fast one, allowing us to drift rather than drop to the ground. When we hit there are only a smattering of bruised elbows and stubbed toes split between us, injury-wise. The airbag goes off several seconds after we clamber out of the vehicle.

There's not another vehicle in sight (save for a few civilian speeders knocking about several miles above us), and I'm pretty sure that there are more Stormtroopers searching for us right now, so I lead the group over toward a line of shop fronts, by waving and calling, "Hey, over here."

Nobody disagrees, but Stocking points out, "What about that vehicle, won't they recognize it," He gestures to the smoking speeder.

"Right," says Doggs, and fires several times into the speeder's hood. Primith yelps as the speeder is engulfed in a ball of fire.

"Yeah, says Stocking, glancing at the blackened carapace that had been our getaway ship mere moments ago, "That ought to do it."

The six of us slip through a door, and find ourselves in a dim room filled with empty tables in, lit only through the blinds pulled low over darkened windows. A counter and bar are positioned at the far end. The smell of grease assaults my nostrils. It's a diner. The kind of dive Osca told me she wouldn't let me be caught dead in when she took me to different clubs and restaurants.

A tubby Bothan appears behind the counter, toting a bulky blaster rifle that he aims right at us. "If you're looking for trouble, you've come to the wrong place," he growls. "Uh. Or, if you're looking to make trouble. I give you trouble. If you make me any."

Primith gives the latest in a long string of yelps, as a waitress droid emerges from the shadows to loom over her, a blaster in each hand. A young human woman with curly blond hair blocks our way to the door. She's wearing big boots and a short blue dress, and has a little blaster pistol pointed right at my head.

"We've got no quarrel with you," says Zanna.

"Damn strait you won't," says the Bothan. "Hermia, take their guns."

The human girl, Hermia, bites her lips, doesn't move to take our weapons.

"There's more of us than you," Galen points out.

"But we're good people," The Bothan shoots back.

"I don't think these are your standard looters," says Hermia.

The Bothan shrugs, "They do seem a bit scantily armed now that you mention it."

"That, and one or two faces seem mighty familiar," says Hermia.

"We're just passing through," says Doggs.

"We're no friends of the Empire," says Primith. "Unless, um, you were, you know…hoping we were."

The Bothan huffs, "If I had a credit for every scumbag who told us that little lie I'd be richer than Kara Evenstern."

"Funny you should mention that," Hermia looks straight at me. "Since I'm pretty sure she's in the room right now." I sense a familiar twinge, a mental sign of danger. She does have a gun pointed at my head, so it's probably overdue.

"Hey," Stocking steps toward her, in front of me, "Let's all take it easy now and-"

He never finishes his sentence. He falls against me, a hole in his skull.

We all dive for cover. There's a sniper somewhere outside. Stocking just unintentionally sacrificed himself to save me.

As another blaster bolt tears through a nearby chair, the waitress droid opens fire, smashing out the window with its hail of energy blasts. Two sniper bolts, and the droid is no longer functioning.

Doggs and Zanna take a few potshots out the window. Galen eases out into the open to move for different cover, but jumps back as he's almost shot down.

I reach out with my mind to try to find the sniper, and through the open window I see an Imperial speeder pull up in front of the diner. Stormtroopers pile out and open fire. the air fills with blaster bolts as we return the favor. Troopers fall left and right.

"Maybe you folks was telling the truth," the Bothan joins our efforts. I note that Hermia is a better shot than he, even with a blaster with less rapid fire features.

The Bothan disappears behind the bar, with a fresh bloodstained spattered on the wall behind where he'd stood. The sniper is still in action.

A grenade sails through the window; I catch it with the force and send it flying right back. The Imperial speeder explodes, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't because of me. Especially because the grenade detonates an instant later. I close my eyes, searching for the sniper, but he's gone. Already dead. More stormtroopers fall, and I sense a whole new group of people shooting them down. To the rescue! Or something like that.

A couple flaming stormtroopers seek refuge from their attackers by diving into the bar. Hermia shoots one, so does Zanna. Doggs would have but his blaster's power battery has chosen that moment to deplete. I push with the force, and throw his attacker into the wall. I hear the snap of a neck, and turn to watch a white-armored fist curve right into my face. I spin away, and the rim of a table rushes up to crack me over the head.

_Time to get some rest_, I find myself thinking as blackness surrounds me.

…

Faces fade in and out before my eyes. Images, moving pictures, just like the ones in my memory. Because they are my memories. Perrin. Galen. Osca. And then we move past the naked people. Coy. Zanna. Doggs. Sharon. Fen. I see blood and I hear screams and I smell meat and I feel heat and I taste salt.

After that comes the evil.

I don't really believe in evil. Never have. There are people who were assholes to each other, sure, but pure evil is just an idea. Till now. I feel it.

Maybe evil is the wrong world. It's like a hole. A hole in life and emotion and reason pulling everything around inside, pulling in all the force.

I see Coruscant in flames, people fighting, people dying, everywhere. And I feel the blackness. Linking it all, feeding it all and feeding of it as well. There's a building, a modest spire, I've never seen it before. And then my eyes snap open.

I sit up in bed. It's more of a cot really. Bare un-plastered walls surround me, a couple of dirty sheets hung on racks to hide me from the rest of the room.

"Hi there," says Doggs

"Hello," I say. I gingerly climb out of bed, head still a bit foggy. I'm still aching all over. Doggs whistles to himself as he stares at the wall. I'm in my underwear, but the rest of my clothes have been left in a nice pile at the foot of my bed. I put them all on. The latest blaster I'd been using is nowhere to be seen.

"So what'd I miss," I ask Doggs.

"You took a nasty fall," he says, "But the medics say you're going to be just fine."

"Who swooped in and saved us? Rebel alliance?"

"In a manner of speaking. Sort of the local chapter. All the attitude, none of the weapons, tech, information, and really everything else. Still, they helped us out. The battle is raging, and we've taken refuge in one of their bases, sort of a command center/abandoned warehouse type deal. It wasn't far. You've only been out a few hours."

"Good. We lose anyone other than Stocking?"

"No."

"Okay." I pull on my boots. "Let's meet the neighbors."

The warehouse is full of crates and Rebels. Bedraggled fighters scattered about cleaning weapons, bandaging wounds, and eating hot soup. They look more like mercenaries than the Rebel soldiers I'm used to. I think of the Jayze. A young boy runs up and passes me a cup of salty, very thin, broth. It scalds my tongue, but that doesn't stop me from gulping it down.

We reach a holonet port projecting view of the battle above, surrounded by Rebels. Primith appears and hugs me tightly so that I spill the rest of my soup all over her. Zanna punches me on the arm good-naturedly and Galen nods sullenly.

"Hey," Hermia catches my eye. "She's up."

"Welcome back, victor," says a gruff voice. I find myself looking up and a broad, muscular Zabrak man wearing a thick army jacket. I wonder if he's as bitter about my killing Fen a year ago as half his planet seemed to be. Probably not, because he says, "They're all yours."

"Who's all mine?" I ask, as Hermia hands me a comlink type device.

"Everyone who's listening," she says. "You give such good speeches on the holonet."

"But I just got up, and I don't have any context and-"

"You're live sweetie." Says Hermia.

"Right." I speak into the comlink, try to remember the kind of lines Menissa was always having me read. "Um. This is Kara Evenstern. I'm a victor, I'm a Jedi and I'm a Rebel. I'm also the chosen one, meant to bring balance to force. Because it is not in balance. The force flows through the galaxy, binds it together, unifies all life. But it's got a gaping hole where its heart should, a black pit of shit and evil right here in Coruscant. You can see the battle, hear the sound of violence. You know what's happening. What's happening is a final stand. We can stand. We will stand. As long as we fight back against the murderers and tyrants who seek to dominate us, we are strong. We have hope, because we are hope. We are the force. We will be the change we want, we _need_, or will die trying. See you on the battlefield."

I hand the comlink back. "That was alright I guess," Hermia says. "Not your best."

"Thanks sweetie," I tell her.

"Name's Kelsch by the by," the big Zabrak takes my hand and shakes it. "My troops and I are at your disposal. Within reason of course."

"Okay." I say. "What does that leave me with?"

"About a thousand guns," he says, "We could probably pull together some more. We're all spread a bit thin at the moment."

"Oh," Hermia adds. "And lots and lots of explosives. I mean lots. We raided this demolitions company."

"I thought you were a waitress," I glance at her.

"Day job," she huffs, "Freedom fighting doesn't exactly pay the bills."

"Has the hyperspace jammer been put out of commission yet?" I ask Kelsch. It feels weird to have everyone looking at me to line up the next big decision. Is this what Coy feels like?

"No," he shakes his head, "The Rebels are strafing the planet for it, but they haven't found it yet."

"Maybe that's not the worst thing ever," I say, looking at the destruction broadcast against a holonet. "When an animal gets backed into a corner, that's when it really starts to try and scratch your eyes out. Looks like that's what the Rebellion's going through, and we just might win."

"So are we taking out the jammer now?" Primith asks.

"No," I say, "Something better."

"Cut the suspense," says Zanna.

"I had a dream," I say, "Actually; it was more of a vision. A prophecy. Maybe. A thing."

"You're the Jedi," Doggs shrugs. "Just tell me who to shoot."

I nod, calmly, injecting a little dramatic presentation. Maybe all that while with Menissa had paid off (though it still wasn't worth the superlaser she cost us).

I take a deep breath. "I know where he is. We're going after Palpatine."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter fourteen:

The building looks just the same as it did in my mind's eye. A medium sized skyscraper, one of the trio erected on a platform a few miles below. It's a spire of coppery colored metal, it was a wonder I'd been able to recall the title marked above the entrance. 'Sandy Shores Retirement Clinic'; by that name and my description Kelsch had been able to locate the building in his database.

We'd spent a few hours planning, a few more getting set up, and now we were in position. I hadn't wanted to wait. The time is ripe.

As the fall of Coruscant continued, plenty of Rebel attacks had been focused on the Imperial Palace. So much that, despite enthusiastic defense on the Imperial's account, it was now little more than a bombed out shell. Palpatine, however, had been nowhere to be found. I figured the palace was a decoy, and Palpatine had taken refuge in another random building. This one.

Time was of the essence, as the building's current defenses were a powerful force field generator on its roof, keeping all undesired energy and matter out on the surface, while the service tunnels below ground were guarded by a veritable army of enemy soldiers. Our spy droids had been lucky to escape detection. Still we'd managed to come up with a serviceable plan. I figure it's one Syra would have approved of, it's suitably dramatic. Overkill, after all, is underrated.

After the shield was down, and the Stormtroopers poured out of the building, the rebel faction would meet them, and a small six-man team would slip past them into the building to seek out the Emperor, while a battle raged outside.

It might mean losing all our troops, breaking them against a sea of white. I hadn't been able to contact Rebel command, take charge. Too many jamming signals flying around. We just might be going to our deaths. But it wasn't a bad way to go. Trying to accomplish something big right up until the end.

I've been running a long time, not sure what I want, what I'm looking for, other than to keep on living. Maybe that's enough. I know it can be enough. But I know now that I have to do this. Palpatine is the key. He controls it all, everything in the galaxy flows and ebbs according to his influence, whether it wants to or not. There's no one else like him. And there is no one else like me. Forged in battle, trained by a life in the highest and lowest of stations; I could always keep running, keep living his shadow, but I think I'm through with that. It's time to play one more time.

"The charges are set," says Hermia, finger to her earpiece. "Everyone is in position." Hermia's traded her little blue dress for tight black clothing. It doesn't suit her. She still seems more like a serving girl than a soldier. She stands at the window, staring across at the clinic. This is the right floor. I can feel the black hole in the force just across from us. It makes it hard to focus. Almost like the first time I experience Zanna's pheromones, only a hundred times stronger.

The six of us have made our way up her, setting up base on a floor near the top of this abandoned office building. It was either this or the evacuated hub of a small restaurant franchise just across from us, forming the three-building triangle between the office complex and the clinic. We went with the office.

Hermia is almost giddy with excitement. As for me, I wouldn't mind lying down for a few hours. But either there'll be time for that later, or we'll all be dead. Kelsch drums his fingers on the large harpoon launcher on the floor before him. He sits cross-legged, blaster rifle across his lap. Zanna is here too, checking her teeth in the mirrored blade of her combat knife. Doggs appears to be meditating, while Galen is a whole lot antsier, bouncing around on his seat. Kelsch has agreed to let me go in after Palpatine as long as he leads the team. It's a fair enough compromise. I agreed as long as I got to pick the remaining team members. They might not be the finest soldiers now at my disposal, but I'd fought alongside each and every one of them. I knew how they worked; I've seen how they fight. I could play off of them.

I could play of Primith too, but she was somewhere down below.

She'd come to me, sometime after my speech through Kelsch's comlink.

"I'm going to fight," she'd said. "We need everyone. Every single gun. Don't you dare make me stay back, don't try and protect me. You need me."

"Okay." I said.

"Okay?" she asked.

"Okay," I said again. "You're coming."

"Oh…" Primith trailed off. I don't have the heart to tell her that I wasn't all about protecting her. That was one reason I'd volunteered as tribute, a big reason. But I wasn't the same person, not anymore. I didn't have the patience to focus on protecting just one person, preserving just one girl. It was everything or nothing. The force or oblivion.

"But," I said, "I do want you to stay back."

"I won't-"

I raised my hand to stop her. "You're a medic. That's what you're good at. I know you can shoot, but you'll hurt the Empire more if you spend the battle patching wounds."

"That's true," Primith said, "That's what I'll do. As long as I'm coming." She hesitated, almost leaving, and then embraced me, resting her head against my shoulder. "I love you," she whispered.

"I know." I buried my face in her hair.

I blink as Kelsch claps, jumping to his feet. The rest of our strike team clambers to attention, but Kelsch has eyes for me alone.

"So," he says. "Shall we begin?"

"Might as well," says Zanna, "I'd like to see the fireworks before I get shot, rather than after."

"I…uh," the wind seems to have gone out of Kelsch's sails a little.

"It's time," I say. "Start the countdown."

"You heard the girl," Kelsch says into his comlink. "Oh, you didn't? Well, she said to start the countdown. So start it. Yeah. Thanks." The comlink goes back on his belt. He's no President Coy, that's for sure.

Hermia's face is practically pressed against the window. I join her. I want to see this. "Three," Hermia whispers, holding up that many fingers. "Two. One." She wiggles her gloved digits. "Boom."

A rumbling shakes the floor beneath me, and second later roiling balls of flames burst from the base of the restaurant offices across from us. Plates and bits of metal arc through the air, smoldering. The skyscraper tips as its base is fractured. Slowly at first, then faster, the tower falls. Just as we'd aimed. Hundreds of tons of pretentious metal architecture slam into the force field protecting the clinic.

The field flickers and shimmers and sparks as bits and pieces of flaming building penetrate its surface or rebound away. It hadn't been built with this kind of impact in mind.

As the force field sputters, a single battered shuttle, our Rebel cell's one aircraft, emerges through the smoke. It lets loose with a pair of improvised torpedoes, packed with explosives and hacked guidance systems. Their aim is true, as they pass through the force field unharmed as it flickers off and on again.

The missiles arc upward toward the top of the clinic, and detonate in a geyser of flame and smoke, ripping through its topmost spire. Its emitter destroyed, the force field dies in an instant, leaving the clinic unshielded. Our pilot opens fire with every blaster and rocket he has, even as the remnants of the other skyscraper break across the square, showering the clinic in debris. When the dust clears, the plaza is cratered, strewn and even in some cases impaled with the remnants of a building, and the clinic is battered and dented, a dozen holes torn through its surface, half a dozen fires burning deep inside.

"Who knew a retirement home would ever look so inviting," Doggs says, and raises his blaster. Hermia jumps back as the window in front of us shatters outward as he shoots it open. The smoke billows into the room.

I watch our troops appear far below, from side doors and maintenance hatches in the street, converging on the clinic from every direction. A wave of white armor spills forth from the clinic. The stormtroopers open fire, and Rebels begin falling left and right. We only have a couple more waves in store. There's no time to waste.

Kelsch fires his harpoon. It arcs away, stringing a thin metal cable behind it all the way till it clamps into the wall of the clinic. He lets the base seal itself to the floor. The zip-line has powerful magnets at both ends. Operator error is going to be our real concern.

Hermia is first up; catching the handle Kelsch removes from his belt and tosses to her. She hooks it over the cable and with a shrill holler she's out in open air, and gravity and momentum propel her down the cable and to the side of the clinic.

Barely able to avoid a nasty impact at the far end, Hermia arrives. Clambering against the wall of the clinic, she cuts a long arc and a few short stripes with a laser cutter, before disappearing through the freshly and irreparably opened window into Palpatine's lair.

"See you on the other side," Kelsch presses a handle into my hand.

"Right," I grip it, just a bit intimidated by the several mile drop before me. "I'll be there." Heights weren't a particularly notable phobia of mine. But I'd never faced anything like this. It was fair to be a little concerned, but it's also fair to stop whining and get the damn thing over with.

I whip the handle over the cord and feel it click into place. Taking a deep breath, I kick off and then there's nothing under my feet but a very long drop to the battlefield. My arms ache and my eyes sting as the opposing building rushes toward me. I wrap the force around myself and slow my impact to a gentle bump. I clamber to the hole in the glass and climb into the building. I give Hermia's outstretched hand an unenthusiastic slap of a high five.

A blaring alarm fills the interior of the clinic with a dull roar. We stand in a deserted curved hallway with an arched ceiling and a several picture windows stretching away in either decoration. The floors are synthetic wood and the walls are carpeted in whites and greys. Any sharp corners or hard edges are few and far between.

Galen arrives, climbing through the whole in the window to sprawl across the floor. Much less graceful than me, then again, I used more force. "Add that to the list of things I never want to do again," he says. I ignore him and glance out the window. Hermia offers him a high five, but not a hand up.

It looks as though the odds are not entirely in our favor. But they could be worse. The Rebels are holding their ground at least, taking cover behind the corners and angles of broken building scattered about below. Some improvise hand-held shields from the debris to aid in their intent to advance. The Stormtroopers manage to set up multiple heavy blaster cannons, shredding Rebel soldiers and their cover. But almost every cannon nest erected is blown to oblivion a well-aimed grenade, or even taken down by the suicide charge of a couple of brave, ergo stupid, men.

I cast my gaze about for Primith, but I see no sign of her.

Zanna speeds down the zip line to join us. "Lovely place," she gazes about, as Galen helps her into the hallway. "Could use more color. Doggs is right behind me, by the way."

"Looks like we're basically coming across from lightest to heaviest," says Galen.

"You shut your mouth," Zanna tells him, as I watch Doggs emerge from the building at the far end of the zip line. I don't sense the danger until he's en route.

A shadow passes over us, as the burning wreckage that was the Rebel shuttle spins past in a downward curve. "Aw, shit," I say as it tumbles right through Dogg's path.

The cord snaps on impact. The figure that is Lyle Doggs falls away, spinning end over end, down and down and down until all that I can make out is a little red splash on the ground far below. Splat.

I'm not the only one who swears. Galen gasps. Hermia gives a little whimper. Kelsch watches in horror from the building opposite.

The floor vibrates, and a few nearby windows even shatter, as a TIE fighter comes in to a hover, its engine facing us. It opens fire on the office building, and I watch Kelsch incinerated by green light.

The TIE fighter turns toward us. "I think you know how this one goes," says Hermia, scrabbling at her belt. She hurls a handful of grenades out the window. I catch all but one in midair with the force, and propel them forward, like they're clutched in a massive, invisible fist.

The grenades explode and turn the pilot housing pod in the middle of the fighter into a burned out shell. The Tie fighter drops away to be swallowed in a ball of fire a few stories above the ground.

Zanna lays a hand on my arm. "Tears later, blood first," she says.

We turn to go until-

The hallway explodes inward several yards down, showering us all with dust and glass. Several TIE fighters are zooming straight for us, right outside the windows. Suddenly a pair of them are engulfed in flames. One downed fighter bumps into another, sending it spinning into a nosedive in the other direction. A V-formation of Rebel Alliance fighter ships swoops down to engage the TIEs. None of those customized civilian shuttles; these are the kind of ships that they _Kryat's_ hold had been stuffed with. The real deal.

As the dogfight unfolds before us, I see troop transports landing on the ground, Rebel soldiers with better weapons and armor than our local allies spill out to engage the foe. Smoking Stormtrooper helmets hit the ground one after another.

"Hell yeah," Galen beams. "Now let's go kill this guy."

Carrying our blasters at the ready, the four of us move deeper into the building. It wasn't just to get away from friendly fire from the combatants outside. I know right where to go. I can feel it.

We proceed down a wide passageway. The door opens before us to reveal two dozen stormtroopers marching right toward us. "What in the-?" I hear one of them gasp.

"Light the bitches up," their commander shouts, and we scatter, firing as we go. I shoot a trooper in the chest. Galen nails one in the leg and Zanna gets a headshot before their blasterfire tears of the floor where we've been. We take cover against the door way, me and Hermia on one side, Galen and Zanna on the other.

The heavy enemy fire forces us to remain in cover as the stormtroopers advance. Galen leans around the wall to fire, but is quickly forced back. He doesn't take anyone down.

I clench my fist, yanking a stormtrooper of his feet and into the way, so his fellows shoot him in the back. That leaves twenty of them.

"This is my last one, unfortunately," Hermia warns me, as she bowls a grenade at the troopers. The blast is deafening in this enclosed area. Shrapnel coats the nearby walls as I cover my face. I can still tell what's going on, feel the death. The grenade tears three stormtroopers to lifeless bits, and the impact knocks half a dozen more off their feet.

"I thought you only had one," I point to the grenade in Hermia's hand.

"Different kind," she says, "And it's my last of these as well." She throws it and the grenade bursts, filling the hall with thick grey smoke.

The Stormtroopers are disoriented and shell-shocked. But I can still tell where they are even if I can't quite see them. A Jedi uses all her senses. So I charge, breath held, eyes stinging.

I shoot two stunned stormtroopers where they lie. I dodge a blaster bolt and shoot a standing trooper in the neck. Another aims at me but I knock his gun aside with the force and his shot goes wild. I shoot him down. I'm about to take out another, but Hermia blasts him before I squeeze my trigger.

Galen and Zanna charge into the fray. The stunned stormtroopers are getting back to their feet as the smoke clears, sucked away by the ventilation system. Galen kicks one of them in the head and shoots him in the back.

Zanna pounces, landing on a Stormtrooper. She shoots him point blank as the slam into the ground. Backhanding the blaster from another's grip, she yanks the trooper against her, using him as a shield as one of his allies shoots him in the back. She hurls the body away, as she shoots the source of that friendly fire in the gut.

I slam two stormtroopers into each other with the force, and Hermia finishes both of them off for me.

Galen shoots a Stormtrooper in the arm, and the soldier's blaster goes flying away, but the trooper still slams into Galen, ramming him into the wall. Galen brings up his legs and kicks the stormtrooper away, melting his faceplate with blasterfire. Another trooper aims right at Galen's head, till Zanna shoots him in the foot, making the shot go wild. Both Galen and Zanna shoot the falling trooper dead.

I grab a Stormtrooper's blaster, forcing the barrel away from me. He grabs my shoulder with his other hand and I blow his side wide open. Their armor isn't so effective when you aim for all the nooks and crannies.

A recovering Stormtrooper tackles me around the waist. Hermia shoots him in the butt, but I still go sprawling. I roll aside as a Stormtrooper fires into the floor where I'd been lying, and propel myself to my feet. I slam into him, shoulder first, and press him back into the wall, firing again and again into his chest.

I turn to find only one Stormtrooper left standing. I splay my fingers and thrust my left hand out. The stormtrooper is thrown off his feet and slams into the wall. His neck is already bent at an odd angle, but that doesn't stop my three companions from shooting him again and again.

We stand in a pile of dead Stormtroopers. I catch my breath, coughing the last bit of smoke from my lungs. Galen wades through the mess. His blaster sounds a few more times, he's making sure no one's getting back up.

"Wow," Zanna says, joining me. "I forgot what fighting alongside you was like."

"As in incredibly awesome," Hermia beams, "You made that super fun and easy. Like where have you been all my life?"

"You watch the Force Games much?" I glance at her.

"Every year."

"It shows."

I walk on, Zanna by my side, as Hermia mumbles, "Well yeah, they show it every year. Till now at least I guess…"

Galen falls in step behind me as Hermia catches up. "We there yet?" he asks.

"Just about," I say. The Emperor's aura is strong. So strong it overpowers everything else. Including the presence of his guards…

Two figures in billowing red robes over blood-red armor and helmets with a single black slit approach as we round the corner, their blaster rifles are already up to fire. Hermia screams as her shoulder is torn asunder. She falls as we take evasive action.

I grab the Imperial guards with the force, twist their bodies towards each other and as their rifles discharge they blow each other's bellies wide open.

Behind the pair, six more Imperial guards stand before a large pair of doors. Looks like we've come to the right place. Four carry force pikes, and two more have rifles. The pike guards charge, as the others raise their blasters. Zanna manages to shoot one of them in the face. As he falls, the other dodges Galen's shots. I duck under his return fire and trip the guard up with the force. I manage to shoot him dead before he hits the ground.

The pike guards reach us. Galen ducks, crumpling to the floor under the sweep of a pike. He kicks out, catching his guard in the knee. The guard stumbles away, and Galen shoots him.

A guard comes right toward me, and I bound back out of the way of his pike. Not only razor sharp, it would pack a mean electrical charge, probably even enough to stop a heart. It would not do to get tapped by that. I rip the pike from the hands of the guard further behind me using telekinesis, and ram it into the back of the foremost guard. Yep, heart-stopping. I shoot the disarmed guard in the chest. Twice for good measure.

Zanna dodges and shimmies around the final guard's pike, getting in close before blowing several holes through his chest. She grabs his pike out of the air as he falls.

Hermia limps over to us. She's all pale, left hand stained red, clutching her right shoulder, which is little more than a crater of bone and gristle with a limp arm dangling off it. "Well," she says faintly, "That wasn't so bad."

Hermia gasps as the bloodstained length of a force pike emerges through her chest. A bubble of blood forms on her lips as she crashes to the floor. More guards in red robes tramp down the hall toward us. Every one of them carry pikes, save for the unarmed one who threw his weapon right through Hermia's back. He turns aside, to fall back through the ranks, but Zanna hurls her pike through his back and his comrades march right over him. I count ten, twenty, thirty and then I stop counting because they're upon us.

Zanna and Galen have been firing wildly into the red army, but I can do them one better. I let loose, and a telekinetic shockwave knocks the first few rows of guards off their feet. A few of them even impale each other as they go tumbling, slamming into the ceiling and the walls.

I fire, moving my blaster left to right, mowing several guards down, Zanna aims from behind me, picking off several with head shots, a few guards get past but Galen is ready to shoot them down.

For a few seconds, we're actually doing pretty well. Then one of the pikes gets in close enough to whip the blaster out of my hands. Even the second-long second-hand contact is enough to set my arm tingling. I dance back behind Zanna, but the guards are already closing in. As she fires into the host, guards already come at me from either side. I leap as they stab, slamming them together with the force, they run each other through to the hilt. I kick another guard in the head as I come down, knocking him on his back. I land in a crouch and force push a guard back into his fellows.

Nearby, Galen ducks under a pike as it stabs into the wall, gouging the plaster. He rams into the guard at a low angle, flipping the red guard over, and shooting him as he slams into the ground. Galen kicks the fallen pike into the air and Zanna catches it, whipping it through the air, and through the torsos of multiple enemies. She knocks pikes out of the way to clear the path to shoot down man after man.

I dance. Moving, ducking, vaulting high, sliding low, moving through the guards as if in a trance. They can't touch me. All they can do is stab each other. When I let them. My punches stun and disorient as my telekinetic blows shatter bone. There's another blaster, only a small pistol, in my belt. I think of it and it flies into my open palm. I fire again and again, find my mark every time.

The bodies are really piling up. Zanna swings her pike one way and her blaster the other, clearing the way before her, "Kara," she calls. "Go on ahead. We can hold them."

It seems as though the flow of red guards has slowed to a trickle for now. She's not a Jedi, not trained with the force at least, but Zanna has got one hell of a bloodlust on her. She can probably take them all.

I glance at Galen. He's struggling with a red guard over his pike and Galen's gun, while another red guard, his legs blown away, beats at Galen's feet, trying to trip him up. Galen kicks that guard in the head repeatedly. I reach out and shoot both guards in the head for him.

"If you don't save any for me," I tell Zanna, "That'll be totally fine." I dart for the doors before any more enemies can intercept me, and slip through. Surprisingly unlocked, they slam shut quickly behind me.

The room is large and sparsely lit. I place it as some sort of ballroom or dining hall. There's a wide open space in the middle of the room with several chairs and round tables erected along the edges.

In the middle of the room there is a chair, a big black heavily cushioned one, and upon it sits the Emperor. I can tell it's him; I feel his presence more than ever before. It's as if he sucks all the light in the room away. I stride slowly toward him, cautious. He just sits, his nose whistles when he breaths.

The Emperor's eyes drift open. Though the force tells a different story, visually he's not very imposing at all, a small, shrunken, wrinkled old man, with bad teeth and yellowy eyes. He wears a hooded black robe that covers him from head to foot. Only his face and the tips of his fingers are visible; A gnarled cane of black wood leans against his chair.

"I thought you'd be taller," I say.

"I thought the same of you," his voice is a shrill rasp, if that's even a thing.

"Oh." I'm not really sure what to say. Here was the most powerful man in the galaxy, I didn't feel quite ready to try to up and punch the guy. "Um. It's all muscle."

"I'm sure it is, little girl," Palpatine chuckles. It's the most joyless laugh I've ever heard and I should know; I've delivered some real good ones myself. "I have always considered the possibility that we will meet." He says.

"And there's only one way it will end," I say, raising my gun. Palpatine seems to type to talk to in melodrama, and I've had practice. Talking a good talk might distract him, ever so slightly.

Palpatine spreads his arms as wide as they will go, which isn't very far, admittedly. "You would strike me down? An old man? Defenseless? Helpless?"

"Hell yes sir," I say, and squeeze the trigger. The blaster immediately falls apart in my hands. Its individual components land at my feet, instantly disassembled.

"You're not at all like the Skywalker boys," Palpatine says, and now he really does sound pleased.

"Does that mean you're going to offer me money?" I ask, lowering myself into a crouch, as if I'm about to kneel before him. "Power? Men? Together we could rule the Galaxy?"

"Do I look like a fool?" Palpatine scoffs.

"I'll get back to you," I slip the knife from boot and hurl it right at his chest. The knife halts in midair. I'd been guiding it with the force, but no matter how hard I push and shove the knife will go no further. I'm helpless to keep it from flipping to point at me, and speeding right toward my heart. I'm only able to stop when I catch the hilt in my hands, the tip of the knife stabbing an inch into my left breast. Blood stains my shirt. Sweat rolls down my face. I can feel the Emperor's power, surrounding the knife, surrounding me. It's a wonder I can keep him from crushing me like a worm. That's what I must seem to him after all. Maybe that's why I detect just the slightest bit of surprise is his rheumy old eyes as I push back

The knife flicks upward, sticking into the ceiling far above us.

Tables and chairs from the corners of the room move through the air toward me and I'm already running. I duck and roll beneath a table, vault over a chair. I bring up a table of my own as a shield; it bursts to slivers of wood as projectiles slam into it. Furniture flies all about me. I grab a chair; swing it to smash down another chair, before hurling it at Palpatine. It shatters feet away from his face.

I clap my hands, rising inches into air, as a shockwave smashes the whirlwind if furniture surrounding me. I follow it up with a force push, and am amazed to watch Palpatine's chair actually begin to tip backwards.

I don't get to see him hit the ground, as the base of a table slams into my back, knocking me off my feet. The rim of another table comes up under my chin; my mouth fills with blood as I chomp down on my tongue. I raise my arms to cover my face as chair after chair smashes over me, and double over as a table takes me in the gut. I try to fight back, push them all away. But there's too many, he's too strong. All I can do is take it. Blow after blow after blow.

And then the next blow doesn't come. I lay a bloody heap on the floor, but I manage to rouse myself, push myself up. The Emperor is standing, clutching his cane.

"And now Kara Evenstern," the little old man proclaims, "You will die."

The Emperor lets his cane topple as he spreads his fingers. Blue lightning shoots from his fingers and envelops me and all I see is lighting and all I feel is pain.

The child of fire is burning. Smoke billows from my clothing as it burns away. The flesh should peel from my bones, but it doesn't. Not yet. The force is still with me for this ever so small bit of protection. Instead it only feels like I'm being skinned alive. I think I can hear the Emperor laughing. I can feel his emotions flowing through me. Anger, hatred, lust for power and violence.

I try to remember Thea. Reach for the ideas she'd taught me. I reach for love, for humility, for honor. But they're all for not. They feed him only, their twisted by his consciousness into more and more hurt and pain, pain, pain.

I can barely even tell when I receive a moments respite from the onslaught. "Get away from her," I hear Galen say, "You bitch." I crack my eyes open to see Galen standing over me, face all determined, unloading his blaster at Palpatine.

The bolts shimmer and flow right past the Emperor. He barely even acknowledges the boy, as he strokes a glimmering ball of lighting energy into existence. He lets the ball fly and Galen screams as it nears him. He bursts from the waist up, exploding outward, coating me and everything in the vicinity with blood and meat. Galen's legs, with a jagged rip where his hips ended, fall to their knees. One more pledge of fealty for Palpatine.

Palpatine looks back to me, with a twinkle in his eye and flicker at his fingertips. Another stream of lightning rushes through me from head to toe. But I've had a second of freedom, a second of thought.

The light and the dark side, they just feed into each other, just like their eternal war. But good and evil aren't inherent. They were ideas, thoughts in the minds of men and woman. Beyond the light side and dark side there was only the force. There is only calm. There is no emotion, only existence. It is there I find solace. It is there that I find strength. It is only pain. It is only power. None of it matters. None of it has ever mattered.

Despite all the powerful energy pouring down on me, I push myself up on my hands and knees. One foot, then another, and then I stand before him.

"No…" Palpatine whispers as I begin to walk. Enveloped in blue electricity that breaks against my chest and presses against me at every step, I just keep walking.

"No," Palpatine whispers, half to himself, half like a senile old man. "This can't be. You can't do this. You can't."

I don't like people telling me what to do. The electricity plays around my fingers, crackles and jumps. And it's not all just his anymore. We're only feet apart now.

I clench my fists.

The explosion of electricity shorts out every circuit in the room. The Emperor goes flying off his feet. The walls and ceilings are covered with scorch marks and burns. Blue sparks still play across a few of them but dissipate rapidly.

The cane is back in Palpatine's hand, as he pulls himself back to his feet. "I don't suppose I have time to rethink your offers," he says.

I reach down and scoop a metal capsule of the ground. Injecting it with the lightning that lingers on my fingers I hurl it at him. The power battery of my blaster pistol explodes with a flash and bang, knocking Palpatine back off his feet.

I walk slowly toward him as he gets back up, more slowly than before. His robe is smoldering, his wrinkled flesh is red and raw, peeling away like a sunburn, but only if that sunburned tissue had nothing but stringy meat beneath.

He swings his cane at me, it's almost funny. Next he'll be shouting at me to get off his land. I duck under the cane, ram my shoulder into him, send him flying back. When I feel him he's just skin and bone. There's something hard on his belt, and I grab it up, as I force blast him away into the wall.

The metal canister feels right in my hand. The lightsaber activates, an emerald blade deploying, humming in the air before me. The hilt is still cold.

Palpatine's eyes grow wide. "I-"

He never finishes. I close the distance in an instant, and the lightsaber comes down. It cuts through him nice and easy, splits his skull and burns right down. It reaches about his navel before Palpatine pops. I'm thrown backward off my feet as concentrated cloud of dark energy pours into the air, rushing away and dissipating as suddenly as it had come.

I climb back up, wobble on my feet. I chop Palpatine's corpse up a bit more, just to be sure. Then I turn and walk away. I walk through the sea of broken chairs and tables, Galen's legs mixed up in them somewhere.

Outside of the doors, there's a sea of red. It's hard to tell where the bodies end and the pools of blood begin. Zanna is on her knees, choking one last red guard to death.

"Kara," she announces my name in surprise. In a sudden show of strength, she twists the guard's head all the way round, snapping his neck. I stand before her, ragged and in rags, an activated lightsaber shimmering in my hand.

Zanna sits back on her haunches and just stares at me for a moment, drinking it all in.

"Well," she says finally, "It looks like you had a pretty successful day."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter fifteen:

The death of Empire Palpatine was the decisive turning point in the Battle of Coruscant.

My theory was that he'd been doing some sort of Sith battle meditation, enforcing his troops, sapping their will, feeding their anger. That kind of distraction helped explain how I'd actually been able to beat him. The Stormtroopers didn't lose all mobility when I killed their master, nothing dumb like that, but they did seem far more interested than before in putting down their weapons and living, rather than continuing to fight till the last man fell.

The Rebel's take the perimeter of the clinic before long. Zanna disappears, off to help them take search the area for survivors. I don't join them. My part of this fight is finished. Instead, I take a seat in a nearby lounge. A young Rebel manages to find me a fresh uniform, a sandwich and a stiff drink. I use all three. My new lightsaber hangs from my new belt.

"Hello Zanna," I say, recognizing her without looking up as she comes into the room.

"Hey," She flops down, sprawled across the couch in front of me.

"I got word from Primith," says Zanna. "She's as busy as could be, all sorts of casualties, but she's doing fine."

"Ah," I nod.

"Looks like we did it," says Zanna. "Or rather, you did it. I managed to spread the word. Everyone knows what you did. Somebody's a cease fire. Turns out President Coy survived, she's at the Tribute academy, about to accept the Empire's unconditional surrender."

"With Palpatine gone, who is there to speak for the Empire?" I ask.

"Trentiss," Zanna says. "Her family's over their now."

"Her family?"

"Yeah."

Osca.

"This is history in the making," I say, standing, "I'm going to get over there before I can miss anything."

"I'll be along," says Zanna drowsily, giving no sign of movement. "In a few moments. Yeah. You go on ahead."

…

I get a ride over to the Tribute Academy from a Rebel troop transport. I sit alone in its belly, the only passenger. It's not hard to convince the pilot the give me a ride. I'm kind of a big deal at the moment.

The transport comes in for a landing, and I hop out onto the main plaza. The towers of the Tribute Academy, styled upon the late Jedi academy, stretch up into the sky above me. Soldiers ill the plaza, rebels and Imperials both.

I make my way straight to Coy's side. She stands before the crowd with a few of her generals. Grand Moff Trentiss holds her head high, she faces Coy's group, joined by a handful of Imperial officials.

"Kara?" Osca peers at me from between the broad-shouldered officers that form the rest of Trentiss's group. Her eyes are red as if she's been crying, but she breaks into a smile as soon as she sees me. I feel an unfamiliar twinge deep inside my chest. I want to walk up to her and fuck her right here, right now. I just wave at her instead.

"Ah, the girl of the hour," President Coy looks pleased to see me. "You have performed far better than I ever hoped. This is as much your victory as mine. As the Rebellion's."

"Congratulations to you and all that," says Trentiss, approaching us, a datapad in her hand, ready for Coy to sign with a fingerprint. "This is our official statement of surrender, signed and compiled by myself, official commander and chief of the Empire until further leadership is organized. It's only condition is the ensured safety of myself and my men. That shouldn't be hard for you to make good on."

"Oh it will be," says Coy.

"Excuse me," Trentiss raises an eyebrow.

Coy shows her teeth. "I won't suffer evil to live. You all have tried to exterminate us. You've failed. You've given up any final right or respect you ever deserved. We're going to kill every single one of you. Starting with the ones you love, Trentiss."

Coy's arm is up before I can react, the small blaster in her hand fires. Osca gasps as she's thrown back of her feet, a hole right through her heart. She's dead before she hits the ground.

Coy turns the blaster on Trentiss, but she never gets the chance to fire.

A wave a negative emotion washes over me. Everything I remember from Palpatine. I feel all that hate and anger. Pain too. My lightsaber flies into my head and I'm already swinging it as it activates. The blade shears through Coy's long neck without resistance. The President's lifeless body and detached head fall at my feet.

"Oh my-" Trentiss gasps and then begins to gag. Her toes lift of the ground and she claws at her throat. Nothing visible holds her up, but I'm choking the life from her nevertheless.

Osca and Coy lay dead at my feet. The dark side destroys. What a waste.

In an instant I see it all. I understand the prophecy. Two forces. Two attitudes. Two medicines. Light and dark do battle for all time. But they don't exist. They don't matter. I've figured this out before. But there can still be a balance in the force. It's only beyond the ideas, beyond the masks, in that infinite calm and emptiness of sheer existence that balance resides. No one else can see it, not that I know of. I don't even think it can be taught.

I know now what I must do. My sacrifice, my triumph. My choice.

Trentiss falls to her knees. She coughs into her hands, rubs her throat, retches a little. I point the blade of my lightsaber at her face.

"Coy would kill you right now," I say. I say it loudly, for the audience's benefit.

"Apparently so," says Trentiss.

"Palpatine would kill you right now."

"I have no doubt of that."

"Well, I won't," I say, and I deactivate my lightsaber and put it on my belt. "It'd be pointless. Just a waste. Despite all the hurt and damage you've caused these people, you'll be living out your days in a cell. I'll even give you a trial."

There are cheers from the audience. I'm almost surprised. I wave to them. Speak to them.

"You know what I am," I say, "You've seen what I can do. In the end, there wasn't any difference between Coy and the Emperor she fought. You deserve better. You deserve a new hope, a bold new dawn. And all you have to do is kneel."

Within a moment I'm the only one standing.


	16. Epilogue

Epilogue to the Force Games:

"It's been a long time," says Vaynich.

And it certainly has.

"They say you're going to live forever."

"Forever is such a long word," I say.

It's been fifteen years since that day at the Tribute Academy. But I barely look like I'm twenty. The force helps for that kind of thing. The force helps with everything. Palpatine had a lot of skeleton in his closet, all kinds of little projects. Artefacts. Rituals. Clones. I inherited them all. The poor man lived nearly two-hundred years. So who could say? Maybe I would live forever.

Vaynich's hair is full of grey. He's lost a little weight though, so that's something. I've kept myself lean and strong too. I sprawl across my throne, a huge black chair, my knee up over the armrest. My stately throne-room surrounds us. High ceiling, lots of black, lots of red. The gown I wear is black on the outside, red on the inside. My lightsaber, the weapon I'd taken from the Emperor himself, hangs at my belt.

I haven't killed anyone since Coy. I haven't fucked anyone since Osca. No violence, no sex, and I tend to stay out of drugs save for the occasional indulgence here and there. I drink a lot of wine though. Creature comforts.

"Knowing you, you're not overly interested in reminiscing. What have you called me here for, my empress," Vaynich asks quietly.

Empress. I never get used to hearing that. Kara Evenstern, the Chosen One, the Victor, the Child of Fire, but now mostly just the Empress of the Galactic Alliance. I called it an Alliance, at least. It made people more comfortable.

I wave a finger lazily. The datapad rises from my lap and drifts into Vaynich's hands. "You show as much restraint as ever," he says.

I'm not a Jedi, not really, I've decided. I'm certainly no Sith. I'm a self-taught force-user. The only force-user left in the Galaxy, as far as my spy network can tell me, and I'm certainly not planning on training another sensitive to take my place, or even to help around the house. It's too much power, too much temptation, too much potential. I can take it. I can handle it. But I'm going to make sure I'm the only one.

I still have Thea's holocron; still turn it on when I fancy an annoying argument. It sits in my vaults many miles below my palace on Coruscant. I built the palace myself, just the way I wanted it. That is to say I planned the whole place out. I didn't do the menial labor; the palace was made to order by the galaxy's finest manufacturers.

"What do you want me to do with this?" Vaynich asks.

"I want you to read it."

"You want me to what?"

"It's a story," I say. "My story. I want you to look. Isn't that what people do when they make stories? Make other people look at them?"

"You made this for me?"

"Oh no, I made it for me. I just want you to…see what you think. Decide if anything doesn't make sense. See if there's any grammar that disagrees with you."

"Very well," says Vaynich, and adjourns to a nearby couch. My throne room is filled with couches, people are so much more reasonable when they're comfortable. "Prologue to the Force Games," he begins.

"Silently, please."

"Right, sorry." I watch Vaynich's face. He reads. He reads for quite a while. Vaynich spends most of his time reading, my sources say. I'd offered him a job, a position. Vaynich turned it down. He fancied retirement. I could let him do that.

I'd been good to my allies. The few of them that were still alive. Zanna helped run my military. We saw each other often. My cabinet was made mostly from old Rebel leaders. The one's I could trust. I'd needed bodies. The old regime was almost entirely in prison.

I hadn't seen Primith in years. Too busy. She lived on Naboo now, working as some big-shot doctor. She was married to a man I'd never met, but that didn't stop him from putting a baby in her belly. She'd sent me a passionate message just the other day to tell me the news. It was a little jarring to notice that she looked older than me now. Primith had been very emotional, thanking me that her baby wasn't in danger, that it would never be reaped. She said I was saving a whole new generation just as I'd saved her all those years ago.

Sacrificing myself every single day.

"Well," says Vaynich, setting the datapad down. "It's certainly your voice. I'll say that much."

"And?" I ask. "Anything else."

"The ending's a bit abrupt," he says. "It might be good to show a little more of the aftermath."

"I've been meaning to put in some kind of afterward," I say.

"You should put me in it," he suggests. "I was barely in the last third at all, and I'm a very important man."

"If you say so," I nod.

"You must send me a copy when it's published," he brings me the datapad.

"Oh, I can't do that," I say. "It won't be published till long after I'm dead."

"I thought you were going to live forever."

"Then you'll be the last one to read it."

"I can live with that," he says, as he turns to go. We know each other well enough. He can tell when I'm done with him.

"There are plenty of victors in the galaxy," Vaynich tells me. "But you really were the winner."

"That's the role I play," I tell him.

I play the part, I keep the peace, I rule the place. As for me, as for what I am deep down, deep inside, I don't know anymore. I don't think I ever did. Galen would look at me and say that I'd made it. Maybe I have. The galaxy isn't such a bad prize. I keep the balance. I move the pieces to keep the board from tipping. Being Empress is all one big game.

But there are much worse games to play.

**THE END**


End file.
